As Nero was chewing away, the man slowly put out his hand toward the lion's paw, which was out between the bars. But Nero saw him, and again the old fear came back that the man was going to take away the meat, and Nero did not want that to happen.
"Look out!" roared Nero, in lion talk. "Look out or I'll scratch you!"
"Don't do that!" said another voice. A voice that Nero knew came from the other lion cage, that had recently been moved up near his. "Don't be silly, Nero!" said the other circus lion, whose name was Leo. "I used to be as wild as you are, and live in the jungle. But they caught me and brought me here to the circus; and now I like it very much. I, too, tried to scratch the man when he wanted to touch my paw, but I learned better. So must you. The man is your friend. He will feed you and give you water to drink. So don't scratch him. He only wants to pat you and rub you."
"Oh, well, if he only wants to do that, all right," said Nero. "He can do that. I thought he wanted to take my meat."
And then, when the man saw that Nero was quieting down, he reached out his hand again, and this time he touched Nero's big paw, with its sharp claws. One blow of it would have broken the man's arm, but Nero did not strike the blow. He had learned that the man would not hurt him.
And a few days after this Nero and the trainer had become such good friends that the man could open the iron door and go inside Nero's cage and the lion would only blink his big eyes, and not even growl. He had learned that the man would not hurt him.
And so Nero's circus lessons began. The first one he learned was leaping over a long stick which the man held stretched out in the cage. At the beginning Nero did not know what the stick was for, but he could see that the man did not intend to strike him with it.
The trainer kept bringing the stick nearer and nearer to Nero, who backed into the corner of the cage. At last the lion could back no farther, as he was close against the wall of the cage.
"Well, if he doesn't take that stick out of my way I'll jump right over it!" said Nero to himself. And that is just what he did, and the man clapped his hands in delight, and cried:
"There! You have learned your first trick! That's fine! Now I must teach you more!"