n't there so very
long. But it was plenty long enough--a good deal longer than I'd ever
stay again, unless I was tied.

"I never saw so many wild, fierce-looking creatures in my life as there
were in that menagerie, and they were just as wild and fierce as they
looked. They had a lot of cages full of them and they had some outside
of cages, though I don't know why they should leave any of those
dangerous animals around where they could damage folks that happened to
come in reach, as I did. Those animals outside didn't look as wild and
fierce as those in the cages, but they were.

"I kept in the crowd, close behind Mr. Man at first, and nobody knew I
was there, but by and by he climbed up into a seat to watch some people
all dressed up in fancy clothes ride around a ring on horses, which I
didn't care much about, so I slipped away, and went over to where there
were some things that I wanted to take my time to and see quietly.

[Illustration: "HE LOOKED SMILING AND GOOD-NATURED, AND I WENT OVER TO
ASK HIM SOME QUESTIONS"]

"There was an animal about my size and style tied over in one corner of
the tent, behind a rope, with a sign in front of him which said, 'The
Only Tame Hyena in the World,' He looked smiling and good-natured, and I
went over to ask him some questions.

"But that sign wasn't true. He wasn't the least bit tame, and I'm sure
now that he wasn't smiling. He grabbed me before I had a chance to say a
word, and when I jerked loose, which I did right away, for I didn't want
to stir up any fuss there, I left quite a piece of my ear with the tame
hyena, and tripped backward over the rope and rolled right in front of a
creature called an elephant, about as big as a house and not as useful.

"I suppose they thought _he_ was tame, too, but he must have been tamed
by the same man, for he grabbed me with a kind of a tail that grew on
the end of his nose--a thing a good deal like Mr. 'Possum's tail, only
about a million times as big--and I could hear my ribs crack as he waved
me up and down.

"Of course, as I say, I didn't want to stir up any fuss, but I couldn't
keep still under such treatment as that, and I called right out to Mr.
Man, where he sat looking at the fancy people riding, and told him that
I had had enough of the show, and if he wanted to take any of me home he
ought not to wait very long, but come over that way and see if he
couldn't get the tame elephant to practise that performance on the hyena