I shook my finger playfully in the
face of one of the seated lions ... to have a sensation of a thousand
prickles running sharp through each pore, when the lion responded with
an open, crimson-mouthed, yellow-fanged snarl; I smelt the carrion
fetor of his breath. I stepped back rather quickly. All the animals grew
restless and furtive. Little greenish-amber gleams lit and flickered in
their eyes.
I pulled myself together. Deliberately I turned my back on them.
"--So you see plainly, ladies and gentlemen, that a lion is, after all,
a much misrepresented, gentle beast."
The trainer was piqued when I walked out, that night.
"I don't want you to tell the people that my lions are harmless and
gentle ... if you do that to-morrow night, I'll see to it that you get
the medal, and not the money."
The afternoon of the following day, while the girl who trained the
leopards was in the cage of the latter, they jumped on her, and tore her
back with their claws. Dripping with blood, she whipped them back, inch
by inch, into their living-cage, that led by a small door into the big
one used for exhibitions. A shiver ran through me at the news of the
girl's mishap. I was glad they had not taken me up as regards the
leopards. And my being among the lions now also seemed less of a joke.
At least, that last night, I felt it not to be, I delivered a
constrained discourse and only breathed freely when outside their cage.
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