ry well that it was nearly certain death to do so; for any elephant
that was deceived that way would recognize the boy that did it, and kill
him the next time he came, if it was twenty years afterward. The boys
used to believe that the Miami bridge would break down under the
elephants if they tried to cross it, and they would have liked to see it
do it, but no one ever saw it, perhaps because the elephants always
waded the river. Some boys had seen them wading it, and stopping to
drink and squirt the water out of their trunks. If an elephant got a boy
that had given him tobacco into the river, he would squirt water on him
till he drowned him. Still, some boys always tried to give the
elephants tobacco, just to see how they would act for the time being.

A show was not so much in favor as a circus, because there was so little
performance in the ring. You could go round and look at the animals,
mostly very sleepy in their cages, but you were not allowed to poke them
through the bars, or anything; and when you took your seat there was
nothing much till Herr Driesbach entered the lions' cage, and began to
make them jump over his whip. It was some pleasure to see him put his
head between the jaws of the great African King of Beasts, but the lion
never did anything to him, and so the act wanted a true dramatic climax.
The boys would really rather have seen a bareback-rider, like James
Rivers, turn a back-somersault and light on his horse's crupper, any
time, though they respected Herr Driesbach, too; they did not care much
for a woman who once went into the lions' cage and made them jump round.

The boys had their own beliefs about the different animals, and one of
these concerned the inappeasable ferocity of the zebra. I do not know
why the zebra should have had this repute, for he certainly never did
anything to deserve it; but, for the matter of that, he was like all the
other animals. Bears were not much esteemed, but they would have been if
they could have been really seen hugging anybody to death. It was
always hoped that some of the fiercest animals would get away and have
to be hunted down, and retaken after they had killed a lot of dogs. If
the elephants, some of them, had gone crazy, it would have been
something, for then they would have roamed up and down the turnpike
smashing buggies and wagons, and had to be shot with the six-pound
cannon that was used to celebrate the Fourth of July with.

Another thing that wa