Publisher's Synopsis
He had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and his sad, insistent voice, gentle-spoken as a maid's, seemed the placid embodiment of some deep-seated melancholy. He was the Leopard Man, but hedid not look it. His business in life, whereby he lived, was to appear in a cage of performing leopardsbefore vast audiences, and to thrill those audiences by certain exhibitions of nerve for which hisemployers rewarded him on a scale commensurate with the thrills he produced.As I say, he did not look it. He was narrow-hipped, narrow-shouldered, and anaemic, while heseemed not so much oppressed by gloom as by a sweet and gentle sadness, the weight of which wasas sweetly and gently borne. For an hour I had been trying to get a story out of him, but he appearedto lack imagination. To him there was no romance in his gorgeous career, no deeds of daring, nothrills-nothing but a gray sameness and infinite boredom.Lions? Oh, yes! he had fought with them. It was nothing. All you had to do was to stay sober.Anybody could whip a lion to a standstill with an ordinary stick. He had fought one for half an houronce. Just hit him on the nose every time he rushed, and when he got artful and rushed with hishead down, why, the thing to do was to stick out your leg. When he grabbed at the leg you drew itback and hit hint on the nose again. That was all.With the far-away look in his eyes and his soft flow of words he showed me his scars. There weremany of them, and one recent one where a tigress had reached for his shoulder and gone down tothe bone. I could see the neatly mended rents in the coat he had on. His right arm, from the elbowdown, looked as though it had gone through a threshing machine, what of the ravage wrought byclaws and fangs. But it was nothing, he said, only the old wounds bothered him somewhat whenrainy weather came on