"Don't worry him about this dream at all. Leave it to me. It's
wonderful. Take him on your lap, Nurse, and--er--be _ready_. It's a
very life-like picture, and I'm going to spring it on him without any
remark--but I'm more than a little anxious, I admit. Still, it's _got_
to come, as I say, and better a picture first, with ourselves present.
If the picture don't affect him I'll show him a real one. May be all
right of course, but I don't know. I came across a somewhat similar
case once before--and it was _not_ all right. Not by any means," and
he disclosed the brilliantly coloured Animal Picture Book and knelt
beside the expectant boy.

On the first page was an incredibly leonine lion, who appeared to have
solved with much satisfaction the problem of aerial flight, so far was
he from the mountain whence he had sprung and above the back of the
antelope towards which he had propelled himself. One could almost hear
him roar. There was menace and fate in eye and tooth and claw, yea, in
the very kink of the prehensile-seeming tail wherewith he apparently
steered his course in mid-air. To gaze upon his impressive and
determined countenance was to sympathize most fully with the
sore-tried Prophet of old (known to Damocles as Dannle-in-the-lines-den)
for ever more.

The boy was wholly charmed, stroked the glowing ferocity and observed
that he was a _pukka Bahadur_.[7]

On the next page, burning bright, was a tiger, if possible one degree
more terrible than the lion. His "fearful cemetery" appeared to be
full, judging by its burgeoned bulge and the shocking state of
depletion exhibited by the buffalo on which he fed with barely
inaudible snarls and grunts of satisfaction. Blood dripped from his