Lion-Tamer (scornfully). All right, my noble swell! Manage him!
[Pointing to Lion, who is ramping and roaring.
Agent. Not at all, not at all!
[Spectators become impatient.
Lion-Tamer. Well, look here, do you want this lion tamed for you, or do you not?
Agent. Why, cert'n'ly! Subject of course to the assistance—ahem!—I should say supervision of Loch and myself.
Lion-Tamer. Ah, "supervise" away as much as you please, only don't interfere with me. The old game! Stand by while I do the dangerous part of the business, hamper me as much as you can, and when, in spite of you all, I am successfully through, take the business—and the credit—over yourselves!
Agent (aside). Wonderful man, very. Wish I quite knew what to make of him. Lion-tamers, like fire, are excellent servants, but bad masters. All alike, all alike, Clive, Warren Hastings, Rajah Brooke, Jamaica Eyre, Bartle Frere, Gordon, all wonderful, and—in the end—very useful, but worrying, worrying!
Lion-Tamer (proceeding). Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen! All in to begin! See the big black-maned African lion, fresh from Mashonaland wilds; bigger than Churchill ever chased or Selous slew, or Van Amburgh subdued, tamed in the twinkling of an assegai, conquered in the 'tss! of a Hotchkiss, by the Great South African Lion-Tamer, Rhodorowdidow the Rumbistical.
Spectators. Hooray! Hooray!! Hoo-ray!!!