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They stared at her as people stare at Van Amburgh when he comes safely out of the lion's den. "My stars!" exclaimed Rose, drawing a long breath. "You didn't really? And she hasn't bitten your head off!" "Not a bit," said Katy, laughing. "What's more, I'm going again." She was as good as her word. After that she went to see Miss Jane very often.
In one of the issues of his paper, just after the trouble with the tiger, the major offered some reflections upon the general subject of "Tigers," in which he gave evidence that he had recovered his good-humor to some extent. He said, "We have read with very deep interest a description of how Van Amburgh used to obtain control over tigers and other wild beasts.
More than one boy kept his eye on him during his public devotions, possessed by the same feeling the man had who followed Van Amburgh about with the expectation, let us not say the hope, of seeing the lion bite his head off sooner or later.
The lion started to roar; and it seemed as if the tigers joined the chorus. For a few moments it was a forest concert. "If only the hyena would laugh," said Jim. The girls were a little nervous. Joe had gone to get Prince. "Oh, you needn't be a mite afraid. Mr. Van Amburgh would just have thrown a cloth over his head; and in his surprise they would have had him all right in a moment.
Both, too, lie in wait for their victims at the entrance in middle life. I have a very fine case of paralysis now; a man built up by nature to live to a hundred never saw such a splendid formation such bone and such muscle. I would have given Van Amburgh the two best of his lions, and my man would have done for all three in five minutes. All the worse for him, my dear lady all the worse for him.
One of those heartless speculators to whom our Government has too often given free scope among the Indian tribes of our borders had brought to France a party of Osages, on an embassy, as he gave them to understand, but in reality with the intention of exhibiting them, very much as Van Amburgh exhibits his wild beasts.
"I once met there," said Flocon, "Rachel, the actress, and Van Amburgh, the lion-king." "M. Dantès is a perfect Mæcenas in encouraging merit, as every one knows," remarked Marrast; "and he manifests especial solicitude to show that he appreciates worth more highly than wealth genius than station. Poverty and ability are sure recommendations to him."
What a perfect treasure would a wife be who could turn a clamorous butcher into spring lamb, and his brown apron and leather breeches into the indispensable peas and mint-sauce to eat him with; who could make the rascally baker instantly become a green parrot with only power to say, “Pretty Polly wants a cracker;” who could transform the dunning tailor into a greater goose than any in his own shop; who could go to Stewart’s, buy a couple of thousands of dollars’ worth of goods, and then turn the clerks into cockroaches, and scrunch them with her little gaiter if they interfered with her walking off with the plunder; or who, in the event of a scarcity of money, could invite a select party of fifty or sixty friends to a nice little dinner, and then change the whole lot into lions, tigers, giraffes, elephants, and ostriches, and sell the entire batch to Van Amburgh & Co. at a high premium, as a freshly imported menagerie, all very fat and valuable.
But here they walked up and down large airy cages, or stretched themselves out in the sun, or dozed in their sleeping-rooms with no brutal showmen to molest them, and no Van Amburgh to make them afraid and seemed really very well to do, good-humored, and contented.
The statue of Lord Cornwallis, on the Esplanade which, being surrounded by sculptured animals, not, I think, in good taste, might be mistaken for Van Amburgh and his beasts is close to a spot apparently chosen as a hackney-coach stand, every kind of the inferior descriptions of native vehicles being to be found there in waiting.
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