s. And
late one afternoon I stood by while Bonavita led a powerful,
yellow-maned lion into the arena cage and held him, as a mother might
hold a suffering child, while the doctor, reaching cautiously through
the bars, cut away a growth from the beast's left eye. It is true they
used a local anesthetic; but even so, it hurt the lion, and Bonavita's
position as he knelt and stroked the big head and spoke soothing words
seemed to me as far as possible from secure. Yet it was plain that his
only thought was to ease the lion's pain.

"I couldn't have done that with all my lions," Bonavita said to me after
the operation; "but this one is specially trained. You know he lets me
put my head in his mouth."

Bonavita is a handsome, slender man, with dark hair and eyes, quite the
type of a Spanish gentleman; and I liked him not only for his mastery of
twenty-odd lions, but because he had a gentle manner and was modest
about his work. According to Mr. Bostock, Bonavita has but two strong
affections: one for his old mother, and one for his lions. Occasionally
I could get him aside for a talk, and that was a thing worth doing.

"People ask me such foolish questions about wild beasts," he said one
day. "For instance, they want to know which would win in a fight, a lion
or a tiger. I tell them that is like asking which would win in a fight,
an Irishman or a Scotchman. It all depends on the particular tiger you
have and the particular lion. Animals are just as different as men: some
are good, some bad; some you can trust and some you can't trust."

"Which is the most dangerous lion you have?" I inquired.

"Well," said he, "that's one of those questions I don't know how to
answer. If you ask which lion has been the most dangerous so far, I
should say Denver, because he tore my right arm one day so badly that
they nearly had to cut it off. Still, I think Ingomar is my most
dangerous lion, although he hasn't got his teeth in me yet; he's tried,
but missed me. It doesn't matter, though, what I think, for it may be
one of these lazy, innocent-looking lions that will really kill me. They
seem tame as kittens, but you can't tell what's underneath. Suppose I
turn my back and one of them springs--why, it's all off."

Another day he said: "A man gets more confidence every time he faces an
angry lion and comes out all right. Finally he gets so sure of his power
that he does strange things. I have seen a lion coming at me and have
never moved,