t would
make."

"Oh, ho! Now I understand!" said the trainer. "My lion must have smelled
the rotten apple and didn't like it. He tried to scare away the boy, I
guess."

"Well, the boy was scared all right," said a man. "He ran away as fast
as he could go."

"He ought to!" said the trainer very sharply.

The excitement, caused by the loud roaring of Nero, was over now,
though, for a time, many persons had been frightened, for Nero had sent
his powerful voice rumbling through the circus tent as his father, and
the other big lions, had used to make the ground tremble when they
roared in the jungle.

Then, as things grew quiet and the people passed along the row of cages,
looking at the animals, Tum Tum, who heard what had happened, turned to
Nero and said:

"I'm much obliged to you, my dear lion friend, for scaring the boy who
wanted to give me the rotten apple. Most likely, as soon as I'd have
taken it in my trunk, I'd have smelled that it was bad, and I would not
have eaten it. But some one might have given me a popcorn ball in my
trunk at the same time, and that might have smelled so good that I
wouldn't have noticed the rotten apple until too late. So you saved me
from having a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm much obliged to you."

"Oh, that's all right," replied Nero. "I'm glad I could do you a favor.
You have been kind to me, pushing my cage around, and I want to be kind
to you."

So the two circus animals were better friends than ever, and that day in
the performers' tent Nero opened his mouth very wide indeed when his
trainer wanted to put in his head.

For many weeks Nero traveled about the country with the circus, living
in his iron-barred cage, from which he was never taken. Nero might be a
tame lion, but the circus folk did not think it would be safe to let him
out, as Dido, the dancing bear, was allowed to come out of his cage.

However, later on, something happened--

But there, I must tell about it in the right place.

So, as I said, Nero went about from town to town with the circus, living
in his cage, eating and doing his tricks whenever his trainer called on
him to do so. And the people who came to the circus performances seemed
to like, very much, seeing Nero do his tricks. And they always clapped
loudest and longest when the trainer put his head in the lion's mouth.
And Nero never bit the trainer once, nor so much as scratched him, even
with the tip of one sharp tooth.

One afternoon of