imply been trained to play a part. Certainly the lion looked as if his
one desire was to kill the little man who teased him so with rod and
whip, smiling all the time under his yellow mustache.

One night Black Prince sprang ten feet through the air straight at
Philadelphia, who saved his life by dodging, but did not escape the
sweep of the lion's forearm. No one knew that, however, for the tamer
showed no sign of injury, but brought his heavy whip down with a
stinging cut over the lion's head, and went through the "act," holding a
handkerchief to his face now and then, but smiling as before. When he
left the ring, it was found that one of the lion's claws had laid his
cheek open almost from eye to lip.

"He meant to kill me that trip," said Philadelphia, as they bound up his
face.

"We will never show that lion again," declared the manager, much
excited.

"Oh, yes, we will!" answered the wounded tamer. "I will make him work
to-morrow as usual." And he did, teasing and prodding him that day as
never before, as if daring him to do his worst.

The climax was reached one night in January, when Black Prince came
within an ace of killing this daring tamer, and certainly would have
done so had not his attention been diverted just at the critical moment
by the horse he was riding. He paused in the very act of springing, as
if undecided whether to destroy the man or the horse, and that pause put
the tamer on his guard, while the watchful grooms rushed in through the
iron gates and drove Black Prince from the ring.

Speaking to me afterward of that night, Philadelphia said: "I knew the
critical moment had come, and that it would not do to push matters any
farther. If I had made Black Prince do his jump when he balked and
turned on me, he would have sprung at my throat, caught me between his
fore paws, and fastened his fangs in my neck or breast. It would have
been impossible for ten men to have dragged him off, and I should have
been killed there in the sight of the spectators, just as my nephew,
Albert Krone, was killed in Germany some years ago by a Russian bear."

In conclusion, let me recall a night that I spent among the wild beasts
of the famous Hagenbeck menagerie. That, by the way, is a thing worth
doing if one values strange sensations.

It is two hours after midnight. The snow lies crisp under foot, the
stars and electric lights shine quietly in the still night. Before me
rises a big building, its walls pictur