g, and Norah capered gently as she trotted along by
her father.
Mr. Linton gave up his tickets at the first tent, and they passed in to
view the menagerie--a queer collection, but wonderful enough in the eyes
of Cunjee. The big elephant held pride of place, as he stood in his
corner and sleepily waved his trunk at the aggravating flies. Norah
loved him from the first, and in a moment was stroking his trunk,
somewhat to her father's anxiety.
"I hope he's safe?" he asked an attendant.
"Bless you, yes, sir," said that worthy, resplendent in dingy scarlet
uniform. "He alwuz knows if people ain't afraid of him. Try him with
this, missy." "This" was an apple, and Jumbo deigned to accept it at
Norah's hands, and crunched it serenely.
"He's just dear," said Norah, parting reluctantly from the huge swaying
brute and giving him a final pat as she went.
"Better than Bobs?" asked her father.
"Pooh!" said Norah loftily. "What's this rum thing?"
"A wildebeest," read her father. "He doesn't look like it."
"Pretty tame beast, I think," Norah observed, surveying the
stolid-looking animal before her. "Show me something really wild,
Daddy."
"How about this chap?" asked Mr. Linton.
They were before the tiger's cage, and the big yellow brute was walking
up and down with long stealthy strides, his great eyes roving over the
curious faces in front of him. Some one poked a stick at him--an
attention which met an instant roar and spring on the tiger's part, and
a quick, and stinging rebuke from an attendant, before which the poker
of the stick fled precipitately. The crowd, which had jumped back as one
man, pressed nearer to the cage, and the tiger resumed his quick, silent
prowl. But his eyes no longer roved over the faces. They remained fixed
upon the man who had provoked him.
"How do you like him?" Mr. Linton asked his daughter.
Norah hesitated.
"He's not nice, of course," she said. "But I'm so awfully sorry for him,
aren't you, Daddy? It does seem horrible--a great, splendid thing like
that shut up for always in that little box of a cage. You feel he really
ought to have a great stretch of jungle to roam in."
"And eat men in? I think he's better where he is."
"Well, you'd think the world was big enough for him to have a place
apart from men altogether," said Norah, holding to her point sturdily.
"Somewhere that isn't much wanted--a sandy desert, or a spare Alp! This
doesn't seem right, somehow. I think I've
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