have furnished his meals."

Instead of being shocked at this, the gentle landlady's eyes beamed
with content. "That's just it--he is a pet of mine, and he lives in the
back parlor."

"The lion is here in your back parlor, and you have the face to keep
boarders?" shrieked the Dane.

"My other boarders have left me."

"I should think so, and this one is going to do like-wise, and without
delay"--beginning to put his things in his bag.

She said she was sorry he thought of going, but she could understand he
was nervous.

Nervous! If he could have given his feelings words he would have said
that never in all his life had he been so scared.

The meek lady before him watched him while he was making up his
packages and his mind. What he made up was his reluctance to flee from
danger and leave the lion-hearted little woman alone.

"I will not go," he said, in the voice of an early Christian martyr.

"You see, sir, this is how it happened," began the woman. "A very nice
sailor came to board here, but could not pay his bill, so to settle
with me he offered me his pet dog. I thought it a puppy, and as I had
taken a fancy to the little thing--he used to drink milk with the cat
out of the same saucer--I consented to keep it."

"And he turned out to be a lion? How did you first notice it?"

"Well, sir, I soon saw he attracted attention in the street. He wanted
to fight all the other animals, and attacked everything from a horse to
a milk-pan. It was when I was giving him a bath that I noticed that his
tail was beginning to bunch out at the end and his under-jaw was
growing pointed. Then the awful thought came to me--it was not a dog,
but a lion! This was a dreadful moment, for I loved him, and he was
fond of me, and I could not part with him. He grew and grew--his body
lengthened out and his paws became enormous, and his shaggy hair
covered his head. But it was when he tried to get up in my lap, and
became angry because my lap was not big enough to hold him, that he
growled so that I became afraid. Then I had bars put up before the door
of my back parlor, which was my former dining-room, and I keep him
there."

"Do you feed him yourself?"

"Yes, sir, but it takes a fortune to keep him in meat."

"How old do you think he is?" the Dane asked, beginning now to feel a
respectful admiration for the lone woman who preferred to give up
boarders rather than give up her companion.

"That I do not know," she replied, "but fr