“Your foot hurts you!” exclaimed the big lion in surprise. “Why, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry! Did some one shoot you in your paw as I was once shot in the jungle? I didn’t hear any gun go off, except the make-believe ones the funny clown shoots.”
“No, I am not shot in my foot,” answered Tamba. “But I ran a big sliver from the bottom of my cage in it, and it hurts like anything! I can hardly step on it.”
“Poor Tamba! No wonder you’re cross!” said the lion, in a purring sort of voice, for lions and tigers can purr just as your cat can, only much more loudly, of course. “How did you get the sliver in your paw?” Nero went on.
“Oh, I was jumping about in my cage, doing some of the new tricks my trainer is teaching me, and I jumped on the sharp piece of wood. I didn’t see the splinter sticking up, and now my paw is very sore,” replied Tamba.
“Well, lick it well with your red tongue,” advised Nero. “That’s what I did when the hunter man in my jungle shot the bullet into my paw. Perhaps your foot will get better soon.”
“Yes, I suppose it will,” admitted Tamba. “But then I want to go back to the jungle to live, and I can’t. I don’t like it in the circus any more. I want to go to the jungle.”
“Well, I don’t believe you’ll ever get there,” said Nero. “Here you are in the circus, and here you must stay.”
It was just after the afternoon performance in the circus tent, and the animals were resting or eating until it should be time for the evening entertainment. It was while they were waiting that Nero’s tail had slipped into Tamba’s cage and Tamba had become cross.
But now the striped tiger was sorry he had acted so. He curled up in the corner of his cage and began to lick his sore paw, as Nero had told him to do. That is the only way animals have of doctoring themselves—that and letting water run on the sore place. And there was no running water in Tamba’s cage just then.