Fifteen years before, Job Toomey had gone away with a little travelling menagerie because he loved wild animals. He had come back famous, and the town of Grantham Mills, metropolis of his native county, was proud of him. He was head of the menagerie of the Sillaby and Hopkins’ Circus, and trainer of one of the finest troupes of performing beasts in all 272 America. It was a great thing for Grantham Mills to have had a visit from the Sillaby and Hopkins’ Circus on its way from one important centre to another. There had been two great performances, afternoon and evening. And now, after the last performance, some of Toomey’s old-time acquaintances were making things pleasant for him in the bar of the Continental.
“I don’t see how ye do it, Job!” said Sanderson, an old river-man who had formerly trapped and hunted with Toomey. “I mind ye was always kind o’ slick an’ understandin’ with the wild critters; but the way them lions an’ painters an’ bears an’ wolves jest folly yer eye an’ yer nod, willin’ as so many poodle dogs, beats me. They seem to like it, too.”
“They do,” said Toomey. “Secret of it is, I like them; so by an’ by they learn to like me well enough, an’ try to please me. I make it worth their while, too. Also, they know I’ll stand no fooling. Fear an’ love, rightly mixed, boys—plenty of love, an’ jest enough fear to keep it from spilin’—that’s a mixture’ll carry a man far—leastways with animals!”
The barkeeper smiled, and was about to say the obvious thing, but he was interrupted by a long, lean-jawed, leather-faced man, captain of 273 one of the river tugs, whose eyes had grown sharp as gimlets with looking out for snags and sandbanks.
“The finest beast in the whole menagerie, that big grizzly,” said he, spitting accurately into a spacious box of sawdust, “I noticed as how ye didn’t have him in your performance, Mr. Toomey. Now, I kind o’ thought as how I’d like to see you put him through his stunts.”
Toomey was silent for a moment. Then, with a certain reserve in his voice, he answered—
“Oh, he ain’t exactly strong on stunts.”
The leather-faced captain grinned quizzically.
“Which does he go shy on, Mr. Toomey, the love or the fear?” he asked.
“Both,” said Toomey, shortly. Then his stern face relaxed, and he laughed good-humoredly. “Fact is, I think we’ll have to be sellin’ that there grizzly to some zoölogical park. He’s kind of bad fer my prestige.”