"I'd hear him."
"Did you ever hear a cat moving about?"
"No," the boy said doubtfully. "Aunt Katie says Spot doesn't make any more noise than a sunbeam. Could a sunbeam make a noise?"
"She meant that Spot didn't make any. You'd never hear a tiger coming, for it's a kind of cat, and moves without sound. You wouldn't know that way."
"I'd see him."
"In the night? You couldn't see him."
"Yes, I could! Yes, I could!" he cried triumphantly. "I'd see his eyes just like green fire."
I had interested the lad and taken him far enough to feel sure he would follow me if I helped him on a little faster. I was ready to use clear suggestion when I felt that he would respond to it as if the thought were his own.
"Well," I said, "don't you see that this is just what the man who wrote the poem meant? He got to thinking how the tiger would look in the night to anybody that came on him in the forest and saw those eyes like green fires shining at him out of the jungle. Don't you suppose you or I would think they were pretty big fires if we saw them, and knew there was a tiger behind them?"
"I guess we should! Wooh! Do you suppose Bruno'd run?"