; Byram sat all hunched up, his head sunk,
eyes vacantly following the movements of two men who were washing
dishes in the flickering torch-light.

He looked up at me, saying: "I guess Mr. Speed is right. Them lions
o' yourn is fed too much horse-meat. Overeatin' is overheatin'; we've
got to give 'em beef or they'll be clawin' you. Yes, sir, they're all
het up. Hear 'em growl!"

"That's a fable, governor," I said, smiling and dropping into a
chair. "I've heard that theory before, but it isn't true."

"The trouble with your lions is that you play with them too much and
they're losing respect for you," said Speed, drowsily.

"The trouble with my lions," said I, "is that they were born in
captivity. Give me a wild lion, caught on his native heath, and I'll
know what to expect from him when I tame him. But no man on earth can
tell what a lion born in captivity will do."

The hard cider had cheered Byram a little; he drew a cherished cigar
from his vest-pocket, offered it to me, and when I considerately
refused, he carefully set it alight with a splinter from the fire. Its
odor was indescribable.

"Luck's a curious phenomena, ain't it, Mr. Scarlett?" he said.

I agreed with him.

"Luck," continued Byram, waving his cigar toward the four quarters of
the globe, "is the rich man's slave an' the poor man's tyrant. It's
also a see-saw. When the devil plays in luck the cherubim git
spanked--or words to that effec'--not meanin' no profanity."

"It's about like that, governor," admitted Speed, lazily.

Byram leaned back and sucked meditatively at his cigar. The new moon
was just rising over the elephant's hindquarters, and the poetry of
the incident appeared to move the manager profoundly. He turned and
surveyed the dim bivouac, the two silent tents, the monstrous,
shadowy bulk of the elephant, rocking monotonously against the sky.
"Kind of Silurian an' solemn, ain't it," he murmured, "the moon
shinin' onto the rump of that primeval pachyderm. It's like the dark
ages of the behemoth an' the cony. I tell you, gentlemen, when them
fearsome an' gigantic mamuels was aboundin' in the dawn of creation,
the public missed the greatest show on earth--by a few million
years!"

We nodded sleepily but gravely.

Byram appeared to have recovered something of his buoyancy and native
optimism.

"Gentlemen," he said, "let's kinder saunter over to the inn and have
a night-cap with Kelly Eyre."

This unusual and expensive suggestion