“Now tell me the honest truth about the lions,” I asked of the trainer.

“They’re a pretty bad lot.”

“Come on.  I’ve made up my mind to go in, and I’m not afraid.”

“—­though lions are not as bad as leopards and tigers ... there’s no telling when they might jump you ... there’s only one chance in a thousand that they will ... but you may bring one up from being a cub ... and, one morning, because of something you can’t read in its animal mind—­it not liking its breakfast or something—­it may jump you, give one crunch, and snuff you out like a candle ... it’s that chance that you take that makes it seem brave.”

“Thanks, I’ll take the chance.”

“Are you sure you’ll have enough command of yourself to make a speech?”

“—­Certain ...  I’ve committed to memory almost all the Encyclopedia Britannica article on lions ...  I’m going to give them that....”

* * * * *

“Gregory!  Gregory!” the crowd was calling, half in derisive jocularity, half in uneasy admiration....

The trainer shunted me into the cage, after seating his lions in a half-moon on their tubs.

“Quick!  Step in!  We’ll be on the outside ready with hot irons in case anything goes wrong!”

I didn’t know whether the trainer was jesting or serious.

“Don’t think of them at all.  They’ll sit still ... you can turn your back to them and face the audience.  It will be safe.  Only don’t make any unexpected, quick motions.”

I was in among them.  The door clanged behind me.

Nobody jeered now.  All was filled with an expectant hush.

Then, as if strange and a-far from myself, I stepped easily into the very centre of the half moon of squatting beasts, and made my speech ... at the end, there was hardly any applause till I was safely out of the cage ...  Then there was a tumult.  Shouts, cat-calls, whoops, and a great noise of hearty hand-clapping.

I stood beside the ropes as the people of Laurel surged by, many of them shaking me by the hand ...  Vanna came by, with the big football player with her, bulking behind her slight loveliness ... lightly she put a tiny, gloved hand in mine ... a glove neatly mended at the fingers ... congratulating me, half with feeling, half with amusement....

“That was reckless and brave, Mr. Gregory.”

I was speechless with frightened delight over her words, and the pressure of her hand.

I turned to the trainer before I went to my room over the tin-shop.

“You say the leopards are most dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“For twenty-five dollars a night I will go in with them, alone, and run them around with a whip.”  As I proposed this, in the background of my consciousness was the conviction that by so doing I could win Vanna’s love....

“No ... the leopards are too uncertain.”

* * * * *