they've got only one ambition in life."

"What's that?"

"To kill somebody or something."

"But their keepers--don't they become fond of their keepers or
trainers?"

The elephant tender laughed without changing the expression of
his face. His laugh was all inside of him, as Phil characterized
it.

"Not they! They may be afraid of their keeper, but they would as
soon chew him up as anybody else--I guess they would rather, for
they've always got a bone to pick with him."

"Do any of the men go in the cages and make the animals perform
here?"

"Oh, yes. Wallace, the big lion over there, performs every
afternoon and night. So does the tiger in the cage next to him."

Phil had dumped the bag of peanuts into his hat, which he held
out before him while talking. Two squirming trunks had been busy
conveying the peanuts to the pink mouths of their owners, so that
by the time Phil happened to remember what he had brought them,
there was not a nut left in the hat.

He glanced up in surprise.