left in him and tried to
break loose, but the Circassian's remarks wilted him and I never knew
him to use poetry again.

"'Aw, wot's de use, Mike?' says she. 'Youse can't crack a ting dat ain't
hard, an' his sky-piece is made of mush.'"

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM

Chauncey Depew was at the bottom of all the trouble; not the punctured
senator from the state of New York, but his namesake, one of the
handsomest double-striped royal Bengal tigers ever captured. Depew was
the central figure in the group which Miller, the trainer of tigers, had
worked so hard to educate, and it was his rebellion which made the
teacher's labors of years come to naught. Late in the season, after
months spent in giving the finishing touches to their education while
they were with a small part of the show which was exhibited near
Cleveland, the tigers were brought to Dreamland; a group of eight
magnificent beasts, all jungle bred and each worthy of a place in any
menagerie. Perhaps it was the discomfort of the journey in the small
traveling cages, possibly the change in the surroundings and the
nearness of the other animals excited them; but whatever the cause,
there was trouble in the narrow runway at the back of the dens when they
entered it to go to the exhibition cage for their first Coney Island
appearance.

The sound of their snarling and growling, the reports of pistol shots
and the cracking of training whips caused a sensation of uneasiness in
the audience until the first tiger bounded through the door at the back
of the cage, closely followed by a half-dozen others. Dangerous beasts
they looked as they threw themselves against the stout bars, which
rattled from the impact of their great bodies, and the front seats of
the auditorium were quickly vacated by the audience. The noise in the
runway continued, but the deep throaty growls which came from behind the
dens were of a different quality from the snarling and yapping of the
seven beasts in the exhibition cage, and when the last of the tigers
appeared in the doorway the first arrivals made renewed efforts to
escape through the bars.

[Illustration: _"The first tiger bounded through the door."_]

It was Depew; not the good-natured-looking great cat whose
"I-have-eaten-the-canary" expression and smug whiskers had suggested his
name, but a jungle tiger who had "gone bad," as the animal t