Slowly and carefully the circus trainer reached his hand toward Nero's paw, which was between two bars and partly outside the cage. Nero, looking out of the corners of his eyes as he gnawed the bone and chewed the meat, did not know what the man was trying to do. Perhaps the lion thought that the man was trying to take away the meat.
Whatever he thought, Nero suddenly jumped up and struck with all his force at the man's hand. But the man was too quick. He pulled his hand out of the way, and Nero's paw hit the iron bars. And as it happened to be the paw that had been struck by the bullet, Nero felt great pain, for the bullet was still in the flesh, though healed over.
"Ouch!" cried Nero, in lion language.
"That will teach you not to strike at me when I am only trying to pat you and be kind to you," said the man with a laugh. "You are beginning to learn things, my lion friend."
The man stayed for some time in front of Nero's cage, talking kindly to the lion, but Nero paid no attention to him. He only ate the meat. Then, when it was all gone, Nero felt thirsty.
"I'll get you some water," said the man, and he did.
"Well, you are kind to me, anyhow," thought Nero, "even if you did try to take away my bone," but of course the man had not tried to do that.
For about a week Nero lived in his circus cage in the big barn, where the animals were kept warm all winter. Nothing much happened, except that the same man, every day, brought food and water to the wild jungle lion. And by this time Nero was not so wild as he had been at first. He gave up trying to break the iron bars with his paws, and no longer tried to bite them with his teeth. They were too strong for him.
Then, one day, the trainer man came again to the lion's cage, with a nice, sweet piece of meat.