"What for?" asked Nero.
"To do your tricks," answered the bear. "That is why you were taught to do them, just as I was taught to dance—so we can make fun and jolly times for the boys and girls. Wait, and you'll see."
And, surely enough, a little later Nero's cage was moved into the larger tent, next to the one where the animals were kept. And then Nero's trainer came and spoke to him.
"Well, Nero," said the man, "now we're going to see if you can do your tricks before a whole crowd, as nicely as you did them in the barn at Bridgeport. Don't grow excited. You know I'm a friend of yours. Now do your best, and the boys and girls will laugh and clap their hands."
So the keeper opened the door of the lion's cage and went inside. As soon as he did several of the boys and girls, and the big folks too, gasped, and some said:
"Oh, isn't that terrible! I wouldn't go into the cage of a real, live lion for anything!"
You see they didn't know Nero was quite tame, and that the jungle beast liked the man who fed him and was kind to him.
"Now do your tricks, Nero!" said the trainer.
And Nero did. He jumped over a stick; he stood up on his hind legs and, putting his paws on the trainer's shoulders, made believe to kiss the man, though of course he only touched the man's cheek with his cold, damp nose, just as, sometimes, your dog puts his nose against your cheek to show how much he likes you; next Nero stood up on a sort of upside-down washtub, or pedestal; and after that he jumped through a hoop covered with paper.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen," said the trainer, speaking to the circus crowd, "I will do the best trick of all. I will have Nero, my pet lion, open his mouth as wide as he can, and I will put my head inside!"