Alfred restrained himself for a moment or two, watching Gran'pa as a cat watches a mouse. There was evidently something in the old man which aroused his curiosity, as well as his anger. Or it may have been an instinctive understanding of the reason of the visit. Who knows?
"George," said Gran'pa, with heartless precision, "we shan't do better than this."
A roar from the cage greeted this remark, and Alfred flung himself at the bars and rattled and shook at them in abandoned fury.
"May I ask, gentlemen, if you're going to try and train it?" inquired the King. "Or do you want it wild?"
Gran'pa looked at him for a second or two, abstractedly.
"I don't care how wild it is. In fact the wilder, the stronger, and the more vicious—the better."
"Then you've the goods in that cage. I've handled some of these brutes in my time. But this 'un takes the biscuit."
"No trace of consumption, I suppose?" asked Gran'pa, like a young bridegroom who has been converted to Eugenics.
"I'd eat me 'at! Look at 'im!"
Roar upon roar beat the air, as Alfred told us in his dumb, animal-like way exactly what he would do if he had only a chance.