THE MISSING LINK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19966, 7 December 1926, Page 14

THE MISSING LINK.

A BABOON BOOKING CLERK. To ask lor a “London Bridge return” ticket and to receive through the booking . office window a couple of tickets to New Cross, a London Bridge single, and a cigarette end, would justify a passenger’s shouting, “You baboon 1” to the booking clerk (declares the London Daily News). A real baboon actually played this little monkey trick upon an elderly woman at the High Level station at the Crystal Palace recently. Sally, a young baboon, which had been consigned to the private menagerie of Mr G. Tyrwhitt Drake at the Crystal Palace, escaped from her wire cage while in the booking office, awaiting an escort for the last stage of her journey. She was so excited at gaining her liberty and so keen on issuing tickets that she showed her teeth to the official booking clerk who deemed it wise to lock her in the booking office until attendants from the menagerie could be summoned. Sally first tried a pen—in a somewhat indecorous fashion—-and found that, like the usual Post Office pen, it scratched. She was still feeling lively when a passenger appeared at the window. She sprang on to the counter, threw him a bundle of tickets, and then, seeing a bag of money, showered the coins over the floor. Other passengers who crowded to the window to peer at Sally received gifts of tickets, but, as these were returned to the station officials, she occasioned no serious damage or loss. She fought hard for her liberty when the menagerie attendants arrived —but she is now quite happy with her playmates in captivity.