"You grand old brute," muttered Toppan; and then he said: "Do you know what you would see if you were to look into his eyes now? You would see Africa, and unnamed mountains, and great stony stretches of desert, with hot blue shadows, and plains of salt, and lairs in the jungle-grass, and lurking places near the paths the steinbok make when they go down to water. But now he’s hampered and caged—is there anything worse than a caged lion?—and kept from the life he loves and was made for"—just here the tamer spoke sharply to him, and his eyes and crest drooped—"and ruled over," concluded Toppan, "by some one who is not so great as he, who has spoiled what was best in him and has turned his powers to trivial, resultless uses—some one weaker than he, yet stronger. Ah, well, old brute, it was yours once, we will remember that." They wheeled out a clumsy velocipede, built expressly for him, and, while the lash whistled and snapped about him, the conquered king heaved himself upon it and went around and around the ring, while the band played a quick-step, the audience broke into applause, and the tamer smirked and bobbed his well-oiled head. I thought of Samson performing for the Philistines and Thusnelda at the triumph of Germanicus. The great beasts, grand though conquered, seemed to be the only dignified ones in the whole business. I hated the audience who saw their shame from behind iron bars; I hated myself for being one of them; and I hated the smug, sniggering tamer. This latter had been drawing out various stools and ladders, and now arranged the lions upon them so they should form a pyramid, with himself on top. Then he swung himself up among them, with his heels upon their necks, and, taking hold of the jaws of one, wrenched them apart with a great show of strength, turning his head to the audience so that all should see. And just then the electric light above him cackled harshly, guttered, dropped down to a pencil of dull red, then went out, and the place was absolutely dark. The band stopped abruptly with a discord, and there was an instant of silence. Then we heard the stools and ladders clattering as the lions leaped down, and straightway four pairs of lambent green spots burned out of the darkness and traveled swiftly about here and there, crossing and recrossing one another like the lights of steamers in a storm. Heretofore, the lions had been sluggish and inert; now they were aroused and alert in an instant, and we could hear the swift pad-pad of their heavy feet as they swung around the arena and the sound of their great bodies rubbing against the bars of the cage as one and the other passed nearer to us. I don’t the think the audience at all appreciated the situation at first, for no one moved or seemed excited, and one shrill voice suggested that the band should play "When the electric lights go out."