h.
I was still madly in love with Vanna at long distance.

There came an opportunity for me to make a few dollars and to show off
before her, at the same time.

The Copperwell Street Show came to town. They lined the main street with
booths, and outside of town, in a large pasture, circus tents were
pitched, in which the usual one-ringed circus was to be shown ... and
they had six lions in a cage ... advertised as Nubian lions, the largest
and fiercest of their kind ... their trainer never going in among them
except at peril of his life. A gold medal was offered to anyone who
would go in among the lions alone, and make a speech to the audience
from the inside of the cage.

I negotiated with the management, but asked for the medal's equivalent
in money. I was offered twenty-five dollars if I would go in, and repeat
my speech, each one of the three nights the show would be held.

I was to go in for the first time that very night ... to clinch my
lagging resolution, the story was printed in the local papers....

"JOHN GREGORY TIRED OF LIFE
------------------------
KANSAS POET TO TALK AMONG LIONS,"

Jack Travers was at his facetious best.

Considering myself heroic, and thinking with inner joy how Vanna Andrews
would be there, I spent the day in committing to memory the salient
points on the nature and habits of lions, from the Encyclopedia
Britannica....

People looked at me both with amusement and admiring amazement as they
saw me about, late that afternoon....

"Now tell me the honest truth about the lions," I asked of the trainer.

"They're a pretty bad lot."

"Come on. I've made up my mind to go in, and I'm not afraid."

"--though lions are not as bad as leopards and tigers ... there's no
telling when they might jump you ... there's only one chance in a
thousand that they will ... but you may bring one up from being a cub
... and, one morning, because of something you can't read in its animal
mind--it not liking its breakfast or something--it may jump you, give
one crunch, and snuff you out like a candle ... it's that chance that
you take that makes it seem brave."

"Thanks, I'll take the chance."

"Are you sure you'll have enough command of yourself to make a speech?"

"--Certain ... I've committed to memory almost all the Encyclopedia
Britannica article on lions ... I'm going to give them that...."

* * * * *

"Gregory! Gregory!" the crowd