and he has found that the training of trainers is a far more difficult task than the education of wild animals.

"Yes, any man who follows this business carries his life in his hands," he said in answer to a question from the Stranger within the gates. "You helped to care for poor Bonavita to-night, after Baltimore finished with him, so you know what a lion's jaws can do. I've seen 'em chewed up as bad as that and get over it, but they never get quite the same again. Leave the business? No; it is like the sea: a man who takes to it keeps it up until the time comes when he doesn't recover, but after a bad accident he usually takes another breed of animals.

"The worst sight I ever saw was about five years ago, when one of our performing bears turned on its trainer and seized his arm. He worried it as a terrier would a bone for a good twenty minutes before we could drive him off, and the bear died from the punishment we gave him. The man's arm isn't much use to him now, but he is crazy for me to give him another group of animals to train, which I can't do because a man needs two good pairs of limbs when he gets into the exhibition cage." He told of many accidents which had happened to himself and his employees, most of them through their own carelessness, born of constant association with their charges who never miss the opportunity which the shortest instant of forgetfulness gives them.

"A constant procession of small animals moving down his throat."

"I said that bear attack was the worst sight I ever saw, and it was; but something happened here last year which impressed me more because it was so mysterious. A friend of mine in Florida shipped me a box of rattlers, which he wrote had been 'attended to,' and I supposed that their poison fangs had been extracted. They were delivered just before the performance started and I ripped a board off the box and stuck my hand in, grabbing them one by one and throwing them into the den as if they were garter snakes.

"The man who took care of the snakes was out on the ballyhoo, walking around with the gander following him to advertise the show; and when he came in he looked them over and found that each one had as pretty a pair of fangs as you would wish to see. He told me about it and I confess that it gave me a gone feeling in the pit of my stomach, for I remembered how I had felt around for them in the box with my bare hands.

"I am pretty busy while a performance is going on, so I told him to let them alone until I had a chance to examine them. Ninety per cent. of the accidents which occur in a menagerie comes from the disregard of ordinary precautions or the disobedience of orders, and I had a presentiment that something was going to happen and I was keeping an extra vigilant eye on the performers in the big exhibition cage. Well, it happened, all right; but not in the way that I expected.

"The snake man instead of getting back on the ballyhoo where he belonged, stood around the snake cage, watching the new rattlers, and along came a couple of gazabos who commenced talking about them. One of them was the wise guy, who always knows about how the animals are doped so they won't bite and all that other information which isn't so. He commenced explaining how the snakes were harmless, because their teeth had been pulled, and giving a lot of misinformation about them. The snake man listened until he couldn't stand it any longer and then he stuck his hand into the cage and grabbed one of the rattlers by the neck.

"'Fangs pulled, eh?' says he, and he made the rattler open his mouth and show a perfect pair of stingers. The wise guy took one look at them and fled, and the snake man would have carried it off all right, only he was so busy calling a few choice names after him that he placed the snake back in the cage instead of throwing it in, and the rattler struck him before he could draw his hand out. He had a clown make-up on, so I couldn't tell whether he was pale or not when he came to me a few minutes later and held out his hand, but there was a queer expression on his face and I knew that my apprehensions had not been groundless.

"There were just two little red dots, no bigger than pin heads, on the back of his hand.

"'You got it, didn't you?' says I.

"'Good and plenty,' says he. 'My arm hurts me already.'

"We got busy right away and took him up to the hospital where Bonavita is now. Say, he was a very thin man and you can see that I'm no lightweight; but by midnight the right side of his body and his right arm and leg were swollen to my size, and in the morning all of the swollen part was as black as a coal. He was suffering terribly, and I tried to get hold of the Arab snake doctor but couldn't locate him, so I wired to Rochester for Rattlesnake Pete. He came down and a mighty interesting man he is, but he couldn't do anything which 'Doc' up at the hospital hadn't done, and it was five days before my man was out of danger. He was not a drinking man—I finished having drunkards around my show a good many years ago—and the whiskey took right hold of him and pulled him through. 'Doc' kept squirting some red stuff into his arm, but it was the 'red-eye' which saved him—and that reminds me."

"The wise guy."

He beckoned to the waiter and each one ordered his favorite antidote for a possible snake bite.

"Did he return to the show?" asked the Stranger, after he had rendered himself immune.

Noah listens to the tale of a Johnstown flood survivor.

"He sure did; you couldn't keep him away, but he has never been fond of snakes since. It is the same man whom you saw putting the group of elephants through their paces to-night."

It was growing late, and the Proprietor announced that he was going to show his wife a good husband and said good-night, but the Stranger waited for the story which he saw was trembling upon his companion's lips, and induced the sleepy waiter to bring a farewell dose of snake-bite antidote. The man was unknown to him by name, but his personality promised to be interesting, for his face spoke of good living, the red of his complexion was evidently not entirely due to exposure to the sun, and the little sacs under the eyes indicated that he was apt to be the last of a convivial party to suggest breaking up.

He had listened to the Proprietor's stories with the same bored expression which Noah might wear in hearing the experiences of a survivor of the Johnstown flood, and he looked regretfully at the vacant chair, now that his turn had come.

"Snakes!" he exclaimed with a contemptuous snort. "What does the boss know about 'em? I used to own the only snake that was worth having. Ever hear of 'Big Pete'?" The Stranger confessed his ignorance, and the other settled back in his chair and lighted a fresh cigar.

"I'll tell you about him, then. You know that a snake is a queer proposition in a menagerie. They get sore mouths—canker the fakirs call it—and won't eat, and