I eat some of it and if it was elephant it was all right.
Well, when dinner was about over, all filled their glasses to drink to
the health of pa, the old stockholder and new manager, and pa got up and
bowed, and made a little speech, and when he sat down one of the circus
girls was in his chair, and he sat in her lap, and the crowd all yelled,
except a Spanish bull-fighter who seemed to be the husband of the woman
pa sat on, and he wanted pa's blood, but the old circus manager took him
away to save pa from trouble, and he glared back at pa, and I think he
will stab pa with a dirk knife.
We got out of the dining tent, and went to the barn, where the animals
are kept all winter, and pa wanted me to become familiar with the habits
of the beasts, 'cause they were to be in pa's charge, with the keepers
of the different kinds of animals to report to pa. Nobody need tell me
that animals have no human instincts, and do not know how to take a
joke. We are apt to think that wild animals in captivity are worrying
over being confined in cages, and gazed at and commented on by curious
visitors, and that they dream of the free life they lived in the
jungles, and sigh to go back where they were, captured, and prowl around
for food, but you can't fool me.
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