"JOHN GREGORY TIRED OF LIFE
KANSAS POET TO TALK AMONG LIONS,"
Jack Travers was at his facetious best.
Considering myself heroic, and thinking with inner joy how Vanna Andrews would be there, I spent the day in committing to memory the salient points on the nature and habits of lions, from the Encyclopedia Britannica....
People looked at me both with amusement and admiring amazement as they saw me about, late that afternoon....
"Now tell me the honest truth about the lions," I asked of the trainer.
"They're a pretty bad lot."
"Come on. I've made up my mind to go in, and I'm not afraid."
"—though lions are not as bad as leopards and tigers ... there's no telling when they might jump you ... there's only one chance in a thousand that they will ... but you may bring one up from being a cub ... and, one morning, because of something you can't read in its animal mind—it not liking its breakfast or something—it may jump you, give one crunch, and snuff you out like a candle ... it's that chance that you take that makes it seem brave."