“I didn’t know the animals attacked you the other night in the circus. You started the fight.”
“Yes, but not until after they had attacked Chiquita,” Buster said indignantly. “I had to protect her, for she was a friend of mine.”
“Are you going to fight to protect all your friends in this world?” asked Old Lion sleepily. “If you do, I predict you will die young. Now I must go to sleep, for we begin our long journey soon, and I do hate riding on a train. It rasps my nerves.”
Buster never knew how seriously to take the Old Lion’s words, but he was a companionable and harmless old fellow, and sometimes rambled on just to hear himself talk. He was getting so old that talking was the easiest thing to do, and between eating and sleeping that was about all he did. Sometimes he appeared in the circus as a fierce old lion, who had killed any number of keepers, but it was growing harder and harder for him to assume the pose. He wasn’t fierce looking at all, except when he roared, and that was such an exertion he seldom did it unless prodded by the attendants.
“How does it feel to ride on a train?” Buster asked when he saw that the Old Lion was going to drop off asleep right before him.
“How does it feel?” he drawled. “Why, it feels as if all the bones in your body were rattling, and when the train stops—and it’s stopping all the time when it isn’t going—you stand on your head and then on your tail, and if you’re lucky you don’t die of fright.”
“It must be a wonderful experience,” remarked Buster.
“It is, and you won’t enjoy it. I don’t know what trains were invented for unless it was to torture those who ride in them. But when we get there we’ll have a long rest.”
“Where?” asked Buster.
“Where we’re going, and when you get there you wonder why you came, and where you are. Now do you understand?”