“He isn’t very tame just now,” said Dido, the dancing bear, who did funny tricks on top of a wooden platform strapped to Tum Tum’s back. “I call him rather wild!”
“So he is; but don’t let him hear you say it,” whispered Tum Tum through his trunk. “It might make him all the crosser.”
“Here! What’s that you’re saying about me?” suddenly asked Tamba. He came over to the side of his cage nearest Tum Tum. “I heard you talking about me,” went on the tame tiger, who was beautifully striped with yellow and black. “I heard you, and I don’t like it!”
“Well, then you shouldn’t be so cross,” said Tum Tum. He was not at all afraid of Tamba, as some of the smaller circus animals—such as the monkeys and little Shetland ponies—were. “You spoke very unkindly to Nero just now,” went on Tum Tum. “And, really, if his tail did slip in between the bars of your cage, that didn’t hurt anything, did it?”
Tamba, the tame tiger, sort of hung his head. He was a bit ashamed of himself, as he had good reason to be.
“We ought to be kind to one another—we circus animals,” went on Tum Tum. “Here we are, a good way from our jungle homes, most of us. And though we like it here in the circus, still we can’t help but think, sometimes, of how we used to run about as we pleased in the woods and the fields. So we ought to be nice to each other here.”
“Yes, that’s right,” agreed Tamba. “I’m sorry I was cross to you, Nero. You can put your tail in my cage as much as you want.”
“I don’t want to!” growled the big lion. “My own cage is plenty good enough for me, thank you. I can switch my tail around in my own cage as much as I please.”
“Oh, don’t talk that way,” said Tum Tum. “Now that Tamba has said he is sorry, Nero, you ought to be nice, too.”
“Yes,” went on Tamba. “Come on, Nero. Put your tail in my cage. I won’t scratch it or step on it. I’m sorry I was cross. But really I am so homesick for my jungle, and my foot hurts me so, that I don’t know what I’m saying.”