ars of twenty years'
whipping on their bald hides; besides, they were born and brought up
behind the bars. They growled from force of habit, but there was not
much danger in them. The posters of course announced the two brutes as
two of the most ferocious kings of the forest.

From these he passed to cage-bred lions in their prime, thence to the
wild animals, of which Brutus was one. Until the tamer was able to work
with these last, he was not considered as belonging to the rank of real
tamers. The sensation he experienced the first time he entered the cage
of wild animals was difficult to describe; it was an appreciation of
imminent danger coupled with courage. When he issued from the cage his
tights and spangled cloth felt as if they had just come out of the wash
tub. He was steeled up to the point of bravery before the brutes, but
ten minutes afterward a child could have knocked him over.

The principal secret of managing the brutes was not to be afraid of
them. When the man showed fear he was lost. The mastery was not acquired
so much through violence of treatment as an absolute sense of security
in their presence. Audacity and self-possession were necessary every
minute, every second; a moment's loss of equilibrium might prove fatal.

The buttery mode of treatment about which bookmen wrote had no existence
in fact among showmen. No man managed his beasts with kindness. When his
Brutus licked his face in his performance it looked affectionate, but it
was not; he did it because he was afraid; and when the animal went
through this osculatory business he was obliged to keep his eye on him
with all the concentration of his will, for there was something in the
beast's eyes which showed that he would sooner use his teeth than his
tongue.

There was an impression that a lion once tamed is tamed for good, as a
horse is broken to harness. This was an error; the lion had to be tamed
every day anew in order to keep him in subjection.

Rounders asked him if he meant to say that all lions were vicious. To
which he answered negatively. There were good lions and bad lions, just
as there were good and bad men. The bad beasts, however, were more
numerous than the others, for it was their nature to kill to provide for
their hunger. The book talk about their generosity was not trustworthy;
the instinct of the beast was to kill when it was hungry, but when its
stomach was full it was less dangerous. He had seen the beast in its
wi