At last he was gently put upon his feet again. He made one bound for liberty, a bound which brought him close to the giraffes. Here again he felt a keen pang of fear, for one of them, suddenly stretching his long neck over the top of the box, touched him quite unexpectedly with his long black tongue.
After this Clown was much more watchful and did not come too close to the animals in the boxes. Even the sound of a fly buzzing put him on his guard, and this was a good thing for him, for he was in the midst of a horde not always pleasant and sometimes quite dangerous, where all sorts of accidents might have happened to him. Fortunately he had escaped harm, and these lessons made him very careful afterwards.
A bell rang. Immediately commotion arose; people moved about in all directions; the feeling of unrest showed more and more in the cages; the inmates turned and twisted. Clown wondered what could be the matter. The wild beasts roared, the horses whinnied; all the animals clamored at once.
There was a medley of sounds that was simply deafening. It was feeding time.
Barrows full of fresh meat, loaves of bread and bundles of forage, were passed around freely. Each animal was served in turn according to his taste. After the first bite or two calm gradually returned, in the cages anyhow.