He had liked the parade through the city streets, when the elephants, horses, and camels wore such bright and gaily colored blankets. Now something else was going to happen.
The animal tent, in which stood Nero's cage and that of the other jungle folk, was soon filled with boys and girls and their fathers and mothers, all of whom had come to the circus. They moved from cage to cage, stopping to toss popcorn balls to Dido, the dancing bear, and feed peanuts to Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, and to the friends of Mappo and some of the other merry monkeys.
Coming to the cage of the big lion, the boys and girls would stop and look in, and perhaps some one would say:
"Oh, isn't he big and fierce! I wouldn't want to go into his cage!"
And perhaps some one else would answer:
"Pooh! I guess he's a trained lion! Maybe he does tricks! When I grow up I'm going to be a lion tamer."
Of course Nero did not understand any of this talk, but he liked to look at the boys and girls, and he was not nearly as wild as he had been when he lived in the jungle. Nero was really quite tame, and he liked his trainer very much, for the man was kind to Nero.
Pretty soon all the people—even the boys and girls—went out of the animal tent, leaving the animals almost alone.
"Where have they gone?" asked Nero of Dido.
"Oh, into the other tent, where the music is playing and where the performance is going on. You'll soon be going in there too, and so shall I."