“No; but he isn’t acting right. He doesn’t do his tricks as well as he used to. I think something is the matter with one of his paws. I’m going to have a look to-morrow.”
Of course Tamba did not understand what the circus men were saying. He knew a little man-talk, such as: “Get up on your stool!” “Stand on your hind legs!” “Jump through the hoop!”
These were the things Tamba’s trainer said to him when he wanted the tame tiger to do his tricks. But, though Tamba did not know what the men were saying, he guessed that they were talking about him, for they stood in front of his cage and looked at him. One of the men—the one who put Tamba through his circus tricks—put out his hand and touched, gently enough, the sore paw of Tamba. The tiger sprang up and growled fiercely, though he did not try to claw his kind trainer.
“There! See what I told you!” said the man. “That paw is sore, and that’s what makes Tamba so cross. I’ll have to get the doctor to look at him.”
Tamba did not do his tricks at all well that evening in the circus tent, and no wonder. Every time he jumped on his sore paw, the one with the splinter in it, he felt a great pain. And when the time came for him to leap through a paper hoop, as some of the clowns leap when they are riding around the circus rings on the backs of horses, why, Tamba just wouldn’t do it! He turned away and curled up in the corner of his cage.
“Oh, how I wish I were back in my Indian jungle!” thought poor, sick, lonesome Tamba.
“Well, there’s no use trying to make that tiger do tricks to-night,” said the man who went in the cage with Tamba. “Something is wrong. I will look at his foot.”
And that night, after the show was over, the animal doctor came to the tiger’s cage. They tied Tamba with ropes, so he could not scratch or bite, and they pulled his paw—the sore one—outside the bars.
And then Tamba had an unhappy time. For suddenly he felt a very sharp pain in his paw. That was when the doctor cut out the splinter with a knife. Tamba howled and growled and whined. The pain was very bad, but pretty soon the men, who were as kind to him as they could be, put some salve on the sore place, took off the ropes and let Tamba curl up in the corner of his cage again.
“Oh, how my foot hurts!” thought Tamba. “It is worse than before! I don’t like this circus at all! I’m going to break out and run away the first chance I get! I’m going back to my jungle!”