-painted rings at the word of command; to
fetch and carry like a spaniel. A hundred times the changing crowd has
paid its paltry fee to watch the little play that is daily acted behind
the stout iron bars by the man and the beast. The man, the nobler,
braver creature, is arrayed in a wretched flimsy finery of tights and
spangles, parading his physical weakness and inferiority in the
toggery of a mountebank. The tiger, vast, sleepy-eyed, mysterious, lies
motionless in the front of his cage, the gorgeous stripes of his velvet
coat following each curve of his body, from the cushions of his great
fore paws to the arch of his gathered haunches. The watchfulness and
flexible activity of the serpent and the strength that knows no master
are clothed in the magnificent robes of the native-born sovereign. Time
and times again the beautiful giant has gone through the slavish
round of his mechanical tricks, obedient to the fragile creature of
intelligence, to the little dwarf, man, whose power is in his eyes and
heart only. He is accustomed to the lights, to the spectators, to the
laughter, to the applause, to the frightened scream of the hysterical
women in the audience, to the close air and to the narrow stage behind
the bars. The tamer in his tights and tinsel has grown used to his
tiger, to his emotions, to his hourly danger. He even finds at last that
his mind wanders during the performance, and that at the very instant
when he is holding the ring for the leap, or thrusting his head into the
beast's fearful jaws, he is thinking of his wife, of his little child,
of his domestic happiness or household troubles, rather than of what
he is doing. Many times, perhaps many hundreds of times, all passes off
quietly and successfully. Then, inevitably, comes the struggle. Who
can tell the causes? The tiger is growing old, or is ill fed, or is not
well, or is merely in one of those evil humours to which animals are
subject as well as their masters. One day he refuses to go through with
the performance. First one trick fails, and then another. The public
grows impatient, the man in spangles grows nervous, raises his voice,
stamps loudly with his foot, and strikes his terrible slave with his
light switch. A low, deep sound breaks from the enormous throat, the
spectators hold their breath, the huge, flexible limbs are gathered for
the leap, and in the gaslight and the dead silence man and beast are
face to face. Life hangs in the balance, and