il of a tiger watching his approaching prey.

Orso advanced several steps, and for a few minutes they looked into
each other's eyes. The manager's face resembled that of the tamer who
enters the cage, intending to subdue a dangerous animal, and at the
same time watches it.

His rage overcame his caution. His legs, incased in elk riding
breeches and high boots, pranced under him with anger. Perhaps it was
not the idleness alone of the children which increased his rage.
Jenny, from above, looked at both of them like a frightened hare
watching two lynxes.

"Hoodlum! dog catcher, thou cur!" hissed the manager.

The whip with the velocity of lightning whistled through the air in a
circle, hissed and struck. Orso winced and howled a little, and
stepped toward the manager, but the second stroke stopped him at once,
then the third, fourth--tenth. The contest had begun, although there
was no audience. The uplifted hand of the "great artist" scarcely
moved, but his wrist revolved, as if a part of some machinery, and,
with each revolution, the sharp point of the lash stung the skin of
Orso. It seemed as if the whip, or rather its poisonous fang, filled
the whole space between the athlete and the manager, who in his
increasing excitement reached the genuine enthusiasm of the artist.
The "master" simply improvised. The cracking end flashing in the air
twice had written down its bloody trace on the bare neck of the
athlete. Orso was silent in this dance. At every cut he stepped one
step forward and the manager one step backward. In this way they
circled the arena, and at last the manager backed out of the ring as a
conqueror from the cage, and disappeared through the entrance to the
stables, still as the conqueror. As he left his eye fell on Jenny.

"Get on your horse," he cried; "I will settle with you later."

His voice had scarcely ceased before her white skirt flashed in the
air, and in a moment she was on the back of the horse. The manager had
disappeared, and the horse began to gallop around the ring,
occasionally striking the side with its hoofs.

"Hep! Hep!" agitatedly said Jenny to the horse with her childish
voice: "Hep! hep!" but this "hep, hep," was at the same time a sob.
The horse increased his speed, clattering with his hoofs as he leaned
more and more to the center. The girl, standing on the pad with her
feet close together, seemed scarcely to touch it with the ends of her
toes; her bare rosy arms rose and fel