Everyone clapped and laughed at that.

Then Sam made his pink-eyed pets do many tricks.  They ran up his arms to his shoulders, and sat on his head.  Some of them jumped over sticks, and others through paper-covered hoops, like the horse-back riders in a real circus.  One big white mouse climbed a ladder, and two others drew a little wagon, in which a third mouse sat, pretending to hold the reins.  One big white mouse fired a toy cannon, that shot a paper cap.

Then Sam made his mice all stand up in a line, and make a bow to the people.

“That ends the white mice act!” cried Sam.  “We will now show you a wild lion.  But please don’t anybody be scared, for the lion can only eat bread and jam, and he won’t hurt you.”

“What a funny lion—­to eat bread and jam,” laughed Sue.

“Hush!” exclaimed Bunny.  “He’s going to take the blanket off the cage.”

Everyone looked to see what sort of wild lion there was in the circus.

CHAPTER XXII

BUNNY’S BRAVE ACT

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls,” began Ben Hall, who was a sort of ring-master, in the play-circus, “I am about to show you that this lion does really eat bread and jam, and that he is a very kind and gentle lion indeed, though he can roar.  Roar for the people!” cried Ben, shaking the horse blanket that was hung in front of the “lion’s cage.”

The next second there came such a real “roar,” that some of the smallest children screamed.

“Don’t be afraid!” cried Ben.  “He won’t hurt you.  I will now raise the curtain, and you can see the lion.”

Slowly he pulled aside the blanket.  And then everyone laughed—­that is they did after a few seconds.  For at first it did look like a real lion in the box.

He had a real tail, and a big, shaggy mane, and his mouth was wide open, showing his red tongue and his white, sharp teeth.  But when you looked a second time you saw that it was only the skin of a lion, which had been made into a rug for the parlor.  And it was Tom White, one of the boys with whom Bunny played, who was pretending to be a lion, with the skin rug pulled over him, and the stuffed head over his head.

Underneath the open mouth of the lion peered out Tom’s smiling face, and as he looked through the wooden slats of the cage Ben put in a piece of bread and jam, which Tom ate as he knelt there on his hands and knees.

“See!  I told you this was a kind and gentle lion, and would eat bread and jam,” announced Ben.  “I will now have him roar for you again, ladies and gentlemen.  Roar, lion, roar!”

But instead of roaring, Tom, for a joke, went: 

“Meaou!  Meaou!  Meaou!” just like a pussy cat.

Of course everyone laughed at that.  The idea of a big, savage lion meaouing like a kitten!  Tom had to laugh and then he couldn’t pucker up his lips to meaou any more.