irrational dread of impossible bears, bears lurking under the bed
and in the evening shadows. He confesses that even up to manhood he
could not cross a field containing cattle without keeping a wary eye
upon them--his bull adventure rather increased than diminished that
disposition--he hated a strange dog at his heels and would manoeuvre
himself as soon as possible out of reach of the teeth or heels of a
horse. But the peculiar dread of his childhood was tigers. Some
gaping nursemaid confronted him suddenly with a tiger in a cage in
the menagerie annexe of a circus. "My small mind was overwhelmed."

"I had never thought," White read, "that a tiger was much larger
than a St. Bernard dog. . . . This great creature! . . . I could
not believe any hunter would attack such a monster except by stealth
and with weapons of enormous power. . . .

"He jerked himself to and fro across his cramped, rickety cage and
looked over my head with yellow eyes--at some phantom far away.
Every now and then he snarled. The contempt of his detestable
indifference sank deeper and deeper into my soul. I knew that were
the cage to vanish I should stand there motionless, his helpless
prey. I knew that were he at large in the same building with me I
should be too terror-stricken to escape him. At the foot of a
ladder leading clear to escape I should have awaited him paralyzed.
At last I gripped my nurse's hand. 'Take me away,' I whispered.

"In my dreams that night he stalked me. I made my frozen flight
from him, I slammed a door on him, and he thrust his paw through a
panel as though it had been paper and clawed for me. The paw got
longer and longer. . . .