l
lion cubs and group them about the hall--while Steve sat back in
cynical amusement and asked if she were going to request the goldfish
to step aside in favour of a few Alaska seals?

"If she gets a live lion--and she will, because I'm writing to a
circus man now," Gay told Trudy--"I'm going to sprain my ankle and be
laid up from the day the beast arrives until he goes--he won't tarry
long, the police won't have it. But I'm not going to take any chances.
Still, it would never do to make a fat commission on the deal and then
act as if I were afraid to come over and play cannibal with him. I
guess you can go," he added, insolently.

Trudy looked at him in scorn. "You are cheap," she said. "Well, I will
go! I'd just as soon be eaten by a lion as to have to live with a
shrimp."

The lion arrived in due time and was named Tawny Adonis. Beatrice
considered him a perfect love. He was a gay young cub and quite
effective in the new background, well intentioned but lonesome for his
old atmosphere of circus life and his mother and brothers. He was
given a large run in the Constantine grounds, and while Aunt Belle
stayed locked in her room the greater share of the time and Gay
immediately sprained his ankle and was forced to send Trudy as his
messenger, Mark Constantine and Steve found their time well occupied
in convincing the authorities that the town infantry would not be
devoured piecemeal. Hanover had never really approved of having an
Italian villa crammed down its throat, and it was certainly not
agreeable, to say the least, to have a lion cub at large as a
dominating garden note.

"You cannot keep him, even if you pulled all his teeth and taught him
to be a dope fiend," Steve said in desperation after the roars of
Tawny Adonis had been reported to the police as annoying. "He is
growing bigger every day and all he has done is demolish flowers and
shrubs and chew up fence posts. I'm sorry for him, and I'm not
particularly afraid of him, but if there was an accident with a child
even the owner of a dominating garden note could not expect to go
scot-free."

Her father and her friends championed Steve's stand in the matter and
after a little rebelling and pouting and having the pleasure of
seeing her name in all the papers as the owner of the lion cub and so
on, Beatrice consented to part with him on the condition that she be
allowed to give him a farewell birthday party, he being nearly a year
old. She was going to ask