"--So you see plainly, ladies and gentlemen, that a lion is, after all,
a much misrepresented, gentle beast."
The trainer was piqued when I walked out, that night.
"I don't want you to tell the people that my lions are harmless and
gentle ... if you do that to-morrow night, I'll see to it that you get
the medal, and not the money."
The afternoon of the following day, while the girl who trained the
leopards was in the cage of the latter, they jumped on her, and tore her
back with their claws. Dripping with blood, she whipped them back, inch
by inch, into their living-cage, that led by a small door into the big
one used for exhibitions. A shiver ran through me at the news of the
girl's mishap. I was glad they had not taken me up as regards the
leopards. And my being among the lions now also seemed less of a joke.
At least, that last night, I felt it not to be, I delivered a
constrained discourse and only breathed freely when outside their cage.
* * * * *
And in a few weeks my unique and single glory was snatched from me. The
show had moved to Salina, and a barber in that town had shaved their
keeper in the cage, while the lions sat around.
* * * * *
Before leaving for my projected summer as worker on the boats of the
Great Lakes, I snatched at a passing adventure: the Kansas City _Post_
had me walk from Laurel to Kansas City with the famous walker, Weston.
The man was going across the continent a-foot. When he saw I was
sticking the fifty miles or so with him, he became friendly and talked
with me of the athletes of former days ... the great runners, walkers,
fighters, oarsmen ... and he knew intimately also many well known
journalists and literary men of whom he discoursed.
Time and again, like a bicycle pedalled too slow, he stepped awry on so
small an obstacle as a cinder, and toppled over on his face like an
automaton running down.
"No, no! Don't touch me. I must get up myself ... that's not in the
game ..." his rising was a hard, slow effort ... he regained his feet
with the aid of his metal-tipped cane....
"Keep back! Keep back!" to the people, gangs of curious boys mostly, who
followed close on his heels. And he poked backwards with the sharp
metallic point of the stick....
"People follow close on me, stupid, like donkeys. If I didn't keep that
point swinging back, when I slacked my pace or stopped they would walk
right up on me...."
* * * * *
Dr. Percival Hammond, managing editor of the New York _Independent_. the
first magazine to print my poems, came to town ... to lecture on his
favourite topic of international peace.
It occurred to me strongly that I ought to afford him some witness of my
gratitude for what his magazine had done for me.
Though broke, I borrowed ten dollars from the owner of a lunch counter
where I ate.
"I want to give a dinner to Dr. Hammond ... his magazine has helped me
as a poet ... it is obvious that I can't give the dinner at your lunch
counter."
Ten dollars was all the lunchcounter man would lend me.
But Walsh Summers of the Bellman House said I could give a luncheon in
honour of Hammond at fifty cents a plate ... he would allot me two
tables ... and a separate room ... and I could invite nineteen
professors ... and he would throw in two extras for Jack Travers and
myself.