Susan was a giraffe.
'Didn't know Susan was sick,' said Riggs.
'She wasn't,' Pop told him. 'Just keeled over.'
Riggs turned his eyes back to the lion caves. Nero, a big black-maned brute, was balancing himself on the edge of the water ditch, almost as if he were about to leap into the water. Percy and another lion were tusseling, not too good-naturedly.
'Looks like Nero might be thinking of coming over here after you,' the reporter suggested.
'Shucks,' snorted Pop. 'he wouldn't do that. Not Nero. Nor no other lion. Why, them cats hate water worse'n poison.'
From the elephant paddock, a mile or more away, came the sudden angry trumpeting of the pachyderms. Then a shrill squeal of elephantine rage.
'Sounds like them elephants was actin' up, too,' Pop declared calmly.
Pounding feet thundered around the corner of the walk that circled the cat-cages. A man who had lost his hat, whose eyes were wild with terror, pounded past them. As he ran on he cried:
'An elephant has gone mad! It's coming this way!'