Nervous! If he could have given his feelings words he would have said that never in all his life had he been so scared.
The meek lady before him watched him while he was making up his packages and his mind. What he made up was his reluctance to flee from danger and leave the lion-hearted little woman alone.
"I will not go," he said, in the voice of an early Christian martyr.
"You see, sir, this is how it happened," began the woman. "A very nice sailor came to board here, but could not pay his bill, so to settle with me he offered me his pet dog. I thought it a puppy, and as I had taken a fancy to the little thing—he used to drink milk with the cat out of the same saucer—I consented to keep it."
"And he turned out to be a lion? How did you first notice it?"
"Well, sir, I soon saw he attracted attention in the street. He wanted to fight all the other animals, and attacked everything from a horse to a milk-pan. It was when I was giving him a bath that I noticed that his tail was beginning to bunch out at the end and his under-jaw was growing pointed. Then the awful thought came to me—it was not a dog, but a lion! This was a dreadful moment, for I loved him, and he was fond of me, and I could not part with him. He grew and grew—his body lengthened out and his paws became enormous, and his shaggy hair covered his head. But it was when he tried to get up in my lap, and became angry because my lap was not big enough to hold him, that he growled so that I became afraid. Then I had bars put up before the door of my back parlor, which was my former dining-room, and I keep him there."
"Do you feed him yourself?"
"Yes, sir, but it takes a fortune to keep him in meat."
"How old do you think he is?" the Dane asked, beginning now to feel a respectful admiration for the lone woman who preferred to give up boarders rather than give up her companion.
"That I do not know," she replied, "but from his size and voice I should say he was full-grown."