The Puma 287 



him to do and leave undone numerous things, but had to 

 use the only idiom his pupil chose to acquire any knowl- 

 edge of. If he were called in English, the perverse creature 

 would not come. He stood and stared like an obstinate 

 child. More than this, if he understood, as no doubt he 

 sometimes did, and even wanted to do what was commanded, 

 but could not, because he had made up his mind never to 

 do anything unless spoken to properly, he got angry. 

 There is no doubt in the writer's mind that this is a fact, 

 and that the prejudice referred to existed. Force might 

 have been resorted to, of course, but that would have had 

 the effect of deforming his nature after every effort had 

 been made to leave it to its natural expansion, except in 

 so far as its tendencies were prevented from expressing 

 themselves in homicidal acts. 



Langworthy, "the lion-tamer," as the posters called him, 

 used to say that feline beasts, after coming to know one, 

 were infallible physiognomists, but that they had to learn 

 a face before being able to understand its expressions ; 

 also that they only read the signs of anger and fear, and 

 never looked for anything else, not caring about approval 

 or kindness, because all the great cats were destitute of 

 affection. Lions, tigers, leopards, and the rest, he believed, 

 scrutinized the countenance chiefly to see if a man were 

 afraid. If so, no assumed look could conceal the fact, and 

 they instantly became dangerous. Privately he scouted 

 the idea that there was any power to overawe animals in 

 one person rather than another, and held that the sole dif- 

 ference between men in this respect depended upon quick- 

 ness of observation, and especially upon fearlessness. 



