The scene of the moment before was repeated, only with greater intensity, and even in the sunlight I could see that the various hues his fiery breathings took on were gorgeous beyond description.  A bonfire built of red, pink, green, and yellow lights, backed up by driftwood in a fearful state of combustion, about describes it.

“Superb,” said I, nearly overcome by the grandeur of the scene.

“Well, just imagine it on a dark night!” cried Cephalus, enthusiastically.  “Fido is very popular as a living firework, but he’s a costly luxury.”

I laughed.  “Costly?” said I.  “I don’t see why.  Fireworks as grand as that must cost a deal more than he does.”

“You don’t know,” said Cephalus, pressing his lips together.  “Why, that dragon eats ten tons of cannel coal a day, and it takes the combined efforts of six stokers, under the supervision of an expert engineer, to keep his appetite within bounds.  You never saw such an eater, and as for drinking—­well, he’s awful.  He drinks sixteen gallons of kerosene at luncheon.”

I eyed Cephalus narrowly, but beyond a wink at the dragon, I saw no reason to believe that he was deceiving me.

“Then he sets fire to things, and altogether he’s an expensive beast Aren’t you, Fido?”

“Yep,” barked the dragon.

“Now, over there,” continued the guide, patting the dragon on the head, whereat the fearful beast wagged his tail and breathed a thousand pounds of steam from his nostrils to express his pleasure.  “Over there are the fire-breathing bulls—­all the animals here are fire-breathing.  The bulls give us a lot of trouble.  You can’t feed ’em on coal, because their teeth are not strong enough to chew it; and you can’t feed ’em on hay, because they’d set fire to it the minute they breathed on it; and you can’t put ’em out to pasture because they’d wither up a sixty-acre lot in ten minutes.  It’s an actual fact that we have to send for Jason three times a day to come here and feed them.  He’s the only person about who can do it, and how he does it no one knows.  He pats them on the neck, and they stop breathing fire.  That’s all we know.”

“But they must eat something.  What does Jason give them?” I demanded.

“We’ve had to invent a food for them,” said Cephalus.  “Dr. AEsculapius did it.  It’s a solution of hay, clover, grass, and paraffine mixed with asbestos.”

“Paraffine?” I cried.  “Why, that’s extremely inflammable.”

“So are the bulls,” was Cephalus’s rejoinder.  “They counteract each other.”  I gazed at the animals with admiration.  They were undoubtedly magnificent beasts, and they truly breathed fire.  Their nostrils suggested the flames that are emitted from the huge naphtha jets that are used to light modern circuses in country towns, and as for their mouths, any one who can imagine a bull with a pair of gas-logs illuminating his reflective smile, instead of teeth, may gain a comprehensive idea of the picture that confronted me.