!" cried Sam. "We will now show you a wild
lion. But please don't anybody be scared, for the lion can only eat
bread and jam, and he won't hurt you."

"What a funny lion--to eat bread and jam," laughed Sue.

"Hush!" exclaimed Bunny. "He's going to take the blanket off the cage."

Everyone looked to see what sort of wild lion there was in the circus.

CHAPTER XXII

BUNNY'S BRAVE ACT

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls," began Ben Hall,
who was a sort of ring-master, in the play-circus, "I am about to show
you that this lion does really eat bread and jam, and that he is a very
kind and gentle lion indeed, though he can roar. Roar for the people!"
cried Ben, shaking the horse blanket that was hung in front of the
"lion's cage."

The next second there came such a real "roar," that some of the smallest
children screamed.

"Don't be afraid!" cried Ben. "He won't hurt you. I will now raise the
curtain, and you can see the lion."

Slowly he pulled aside the blanket. And then everyone laughed--that is
they did after a few seconds. For at first it did look like a real lion
in the box.

He had a real tail, and a big, shaggy mane, and his mouth was wide open,
showing his red tongue and his white, sharp teeth. But when you looked a
second time you saw that it was only the skin of a lion, which had been
made into a rug for the parlor. And it was Tom White, one of the boys
with whom Bunny played, who was pretending to be a lion, with the skin
rug pulled over him, and the stuffed head over his head.

Underneath the open mouth of the lion peered out Tom's smiling face, and
as he looked through the wooden slats of the cage Ben put in a piece of
bread and jam, which Tom ate as he knelt there on his hands and knees.

"See! I told you this was a kind and gentle lion, and would eat bread
and jam," announced Ben. "I will now have him roar for you again, ladies
and gentlemen. Roar, lion, roar!"

But instead of roaring, Tom, for a joke, went:

"Meaou! Meaou! Meaou!" just like a pussy cat.

Of course everyone laughed at that. The idea of a big, savage lion
meaouing like a kitten! Tom had to laugh and then he couldn't pucker up
his lips to meaou any more.

"Ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls," went on Ben. "We will
now pass to the next cage. This is a real wild animal. He has sharp
teeth, so do not go too close to his cage. He is the wild chicken-eater
of the woods!"

"Oh, I wonder wha