THE LION'S DIARY.
Bother being caged up in this wooden box along with a boar-hound. Why a boar-hound? Is he supposed to look after me? I rather like that, if he is. "Look after me?" Why just with one touch of one of my forepaws I could smash him in half a minute like two-twos. And for the matter of that, that fellow with the whip, who imagines he keeps me in order, by fixing his eye on me. Yes, and the horse too; the whole three of them. But there's that bit of meat at the end of the performance, so I suppose I may as well appear "to come the docile highly trained beast," and go through with the tomfoolery and collar it. "Snarl?" Do I? Of course I do. It's the one outlet I have for my feelings. Who wouldn't snarl under the circumstances? Fancy, me, the "King of Beasts" (it sounds like chaff), dropping off a platform, at a given signal, on to the back of an idiotic circus-horse, stared at through a lot of bars by a house packed full of applauding fools! And we finish up by a scamper all round together that seems vastly to amuse them! What a come-down for a Lion! Learned pigs and educated bears are well enough, but they should know where to draw the line and stop at the "Monarch." I keep pretty quiet at present because it pays, but that snarl of mine may end in a roar. By Jove! if it does, the horse, boar-hound, and fellow with the whip, had better look out for themselves, and that's all I have got to say about it at present.
