nt of Nero's cage, talking kindly to
the lion, but Nero paid no attention to him. He only ate the meat. Then,
when it was all gone, Nero felt thirsty.

"I'll get you some water," said the man, and he did.

"Well, you are kind to me, anyhow," thought Nero, "even if you did try
to take away my bone," but of course the man had not tried to do that.

For about a week Nero lived in his circus cage in the big barn, where
the animals were kept warm all winter. Nothing much happened, except
that the same man, every day, brought food and water to the wild jungle
lion. And by this time Nero was not so wild as he had been at first. He
gave up trying to break the iron bars with his paws, and no longer tried
to bite them with his teeth. They were too strong for him.

Then, one day, the trainer man came again to the lion's cage, with a
nice, sweet piece of meat.

"My, how good that is!" said Nero to himself, as he ate it.

As Nero was chewing away, the man slowly put out his hand toward the
lion's paw, which was out between the bars. But Nero saw him, and again
the old fear came back that the man was going to take away the meat, and
Nero did not want that to happen.

"Look out!" roared Nero, in lion talk. "Look out or I'll scratch you!"

"Don't do that!" said another voice. A voice that Nero knew came from
the other lion cage, that had recently been moved up near his. "Don't be
silly, Nero!" said the other circus lion, whose name was Leo. "I used to
be as wild as you are, and live in the jungle. But they caught me and
brought me here to the circus; and now I like it very much. I, too,
tried to scratch the man when he wanted to touch my paw, but I learned
better. So must you. The man is your friend. He will feed you and give
you water to drink. So don't scratch him. He only wants to pat you and
rub you."

"Oh, well, if he only wants to do that, all right," said Nero. "He can
do that. I thought he wanted to take my meat."

And then, when the man saw that Nero was quieting down, he reached out
his hand again, and this time he touched Nero's big paw, with its sharp
claws. One blow of it would have broken the man's arm, but Nero did not
strike the blow. He had learned that the man would not hurt him.

And a few days after this Nero and the trainer had become such good
friends that the man could open the iron door and go inside Nero's cage
and the lion would only blink his big eyes, and not even growl. He had
learned that the m