iqo THE WALKS ABROAD OF 



" Indeed, there is more than this. If they have 

 the good luck to possess enough to retire on when they 

 are getting old, it is only with the greatest reluctance 

 that they will consent to forsake their beasts. I knew 

 a very rich, retired tamer, who kept most of his mena- 

 gerie at his own private residence. He himself took 

 care of the wild beasts, and never failed each morning 

 to go and smoke his pipe and read his paper in the 

 society of ' his lions.' And when his neighbours, 

 who could not reconcile themselves to his friends, com- 

 pelled him to part with them, the unfortunate old fellow 

 was ready to die of grief. 



" Moreover, danger is among the things to which 

 one grows quite accustomed, as you may learn by 

 inquiring from soldiers and sailors, or doctors and 

 the officials of hospitals. To return to the tamers, 

 once when I was house-surgeon at the hospital, they 

 brought under my care an unfortunate devil who had 

 been mauled by a tiger. His body was simply a mass 

 of wounds ; it was something horrible ! He survived 

 it, however, though how I can scarcely imagine. A 

 little time afterwards, as I was crossing the court- 

 yard of the hospital, my patient came up to me, still 

 enveloped in his bandages, almost like an Egyptian 

 mummy, and said, ' Do you think I shall be in a 

 condition to make my reappearance at the fair at 

 Rouen, in three weeks' time ? ' 



" He was positively wearying to be at it again; 



