"Sally Stubbs, you are the only one of the kind."
"_Mister_ Rounders," said she, pertly pushing him back, "none of them liberties with me. I may be foolish enough to go into a cage after you, but I'm not foolish enough to suffer them things."
After that there was no performance with the lions for over a week, during which Rounders was despondent. He was still occupied with the extraordinary feat of removing meat from under the jaws of a feeding lion. It pursued him night and day, and he told Miss Stubbs that he would never be happy until he found out the secret.
At length Brinton overtook the company, having come by railway. He was completely restored, and as anxious to begin again as the manager to have him do so. He was informed of the accident which had befallen him who had attempted to walk in his traces. He turned to Rounders saying,
"Now I suppose you'll own that I wanted to do you a good turn."
"I acknowledge it--I was presumptuous and wanted tapping," answered Rounders with proper humility.
"As I told you before," continued Brinton, "I owe you something. Sit down here and let me talk to you."
Brinton picked up a piece of shingle, took out his knife, and whittled as the two sat down together.
"You want to learn the business, but you begin at the wrong end. You don't know much about lion nature, and you want to do the high art in the profession on sight. A man must creep before he can walk. Now, you tried to begin by walking, and you know what came of it."
This was a specimen of a bit of the talk given for the benefit and guidance of the lion-tamer _en herbe_, and by the time Brinton got through with his advice, his words had a salutary effect, at least for the time being.
There was a smouldering gleam of vengeance in the eye of Brinton when he entered the cage for the first time after his accident, which brightened almost into a flame as he bore down on Brutus with the hot rod. He persistently thrust it at him; the great cog-wheel growls issued from his throat, and he tried to break down the rod with his paw; then he ingloriously fled around the cage as Brinton chased him with his whip. This was accompanied with curses low but intense, which would have shocked the Christian spectators of the assembly had they heard them.