g, at best, and as the trainer devotes his
attention to a single animal at a time it leaves the others free to
think up mischief or to give way to their unreasoning fear. I had that
borne in upon me in a way I shall never forget a few years ago when I
was a younger hand at the business. I knew a good deal about handling
animals, but not as much about managing men as I have learned since, and
I used to forget that giving an order was not the same thing as seeing
that it was executed. There was a trainer named Barton in my employ who
did a pretty fair act with a group of six lions, but he was a brutal
sort of a chap and punished his animals so severely that they went
through their performance on the jump so as to get out of the exhibition
cage, where blows were more plentiful than kind words. His act was a
winner, all right, for he was absolutely fearless and the animals put up
a bluff of snarling and snapping which made it exciting, but I disliked
the man so much that I was glad to farm him out for a ten weeks'
engagement on the vaudeville circuit.

"He wasn't a bad-looking chap and when he came back from his tour he
brought with him one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She
was an Egyptian who had been brought to this country with a troupe of
dancers for one of the big exhibitions, and he met her and married her
when they were performing in the same theater. Of course, I had
absolutely no use for an Egyptian dancer with my show and I made the
marriage an excuse to get rid of Barton; but he begged me to keep him on
the plea that he was teaching her to do his act with the lions. She was
so beautiful that I realized that she would be a great drawing card if
she developed into a good trainer, so I consented and signed a contract
with him for another year. I regretted it when I saw the first
rehearsal, for it was painfully evident that she went into the cage only
because she was more afraid of her husband than she was of the lions,
and I didn't blame her; for while I might interfere to prevent
ill-treatment of the lions, which were my property, I had no authority
to protect her from his cruelty. They did most of the rehearsing at
night, and I trusted to the fear which Barton had instilled in the lions
to keep them from attacking her, for he always stood at the bars and
they would cower down at the sound of his voice. You know it is never
safe for two people to be in the cage with a group of animals at the
same ti