"It was the day before Thanksgiving," he said. "I'll never forget it, and a big bull elephant named Syd took the order wrong, went 'right face' instead of 'left face,' or something, and 'Patsy' got mad and hooked him pretty hard. Some think it was 'Patsy's' fault, because he gave the wrong order by mistake and Syd did what he said, while the other elephants did the thing he meant to say. Anyhow, Syd turned on 'Patsy' and let him have both tusks, brass balls and all, right through the body. Killed him in half a minute. Why, sir, they took 'Patsy's' watch out through his back. That's the sort of thing you're liable to run up against."
"Did they kill Syd?" I asked.
"No; they gave him the benefit of the doubt. You see, it ain't square to blame an elephant for obeying orders."
Then came the story of how they killed bad old Pilot at the Madison Square Garden back in 1883, fought his hard spirit all night long with clubs and pitchforks and prods and hot irons, one hundred men flaying and jabbing in relays against a poor, bound animal that died rather than yield—died without a sound as day was breaking. "Yes, sir," said Newman; "he never squealed, he wouldn't squeal, and three minutes before he died he nearly killed me with a swing of his trunk. Oh, he was game all right, Pilot was."
Newman came back to the difficulty of working animals broken in by another tamer, but he declared that the thing can be done in some cases if the new tamer has in him that unknown something to which all wild beasts submit. His own wife, for example, after a dozen years of peaceful married life, determined one day that she would make a herd of eight big Asiatic elephants obey her, a thing no woman had ever attempted. And within three weeks she did it, and drilled the herd in public for years afterward—in fact, became a greater star than her husband. All of which was most unusual, and due entirely to her exceptional nerve and physical power. "Why, sir," said Newman, proudly, "she was six feet tall and built like an athlete. She—she only died a few years ago, and—and—" That gulp and the catch in his voice told the whole story. This was no longer a dauntless elephant-trainer, but a stricken, heart-broken man. What now were glories of the ring to him—his wife was dead!
II
METHODS OF LION-TAMERS AND THE STORY OF BRUTUS'S ATTACK ON MR. BOSTOCK
THE wild-beast tamer as generally pictured is a mysterious person who stalks about sternly in high boots and possesses a remarkable power of the eye that makes lions and tigers quail at his look and shrink away. He rules by fear, and the crack of his whip is supposed to bring memories of torturing points and red-hot irons.