By Jack London
He had a dreamy， far-away look in his eyes， and his sad，insistent voice， gentle-spoken as a maid’s， seemed the placidembodiment of some deep-seated melancholy. He was theLeopard Man， but he did not look it. His business in life，whereby he lived， was to appear in a cage of performingleopards before vast audiences， and to thrill those audiences bycertain exhibitions of nerve for which his employers rewardedhim on a scale commensurate with the thrills he produced.
As I say， he did not look it. He was narrow-hipped， narrowshouldered，and anaemic， while he seemed not so much
oppressed by gloom as by a sweet and gentle sadness， theweight of which was as sweetly and gently borne. For an hourI had been trying to get a story out of him， but he appearedto lack imagination. To him there was no romance in hisgorgeous career， no deeds of daring， no thrills—nothing but agray sameness and infinite boredom.
Lions？ Oh， yes！ he had fought with them. It was nothing. Allyou had to do was to stay sober. Anybody could whip a lion toa standstill with an ordinary stick. He had fought one for halfan hour once. Just hit him on the nose every time he rushed，and when he got artful and rushed with his head down， why，the thing to do was to stick out your leg. When he grabbed atthe leg you drew it back and hit hint on the nose again. Thatwas all.
With the far-away look in his eyes and his soft flow of wordshe showed me his scars. There were many of them， and onerecent one where a tigress had reached for his shoulder andgone down to the bone. I could see the neatly mended rentsin the coat he had on. His right arm， from the elbow down，looked as though it had gone through a threshing machine，what of the ravage wrought by claws and fangs. But it wasnothing， he said， only the old wounds bothered him somewhatwhen rainy weather came on.
Suddenly his face brightened with a recollection， for he wasreally as anxious to give me a story as I was to get it.
“I suppose you’ve heard of the lion-tamer who was hated byanother man？” he asked.
He paused and looked pensively at a sick lion in the cageopposite.
“Got the toothache，” he explained. “Well， the lion-tamer’sbig play to the audience was putting his head in a lion’s mouth.
The man who hated him attended every performance in thehope sometime of seeing that lion crunch down. He followedthe show about all over the country. The years went by and hegrew old， and the lion-tamer grew old， and the lion grew old.
And at last one day， sitting in a front seat， he saw what he hadwaited for. The lion crunched down， and there wasn’t any needto call a doctor.”
The Leopard Man glanced casually over his finger nails in amanner which would have been critical had it not been so sad.
“Now， that’s what I call patience，” he continued， “and it’s mystyle. But it was not the style of a fellow I knew. He was a little，thin， sawed-off， sword-swallowing and juggling Frenchman. DeVille， he called himself， and he had a nice wife. She did trapezework and used to dive from under the roof into a net， turningover once on the way as nice as you please.
“De Ville had a quick temper， as quick as his hand， and hishand was as quick as the paw of a tiger. One day， because thering-master called him a frog-eater， or something like thatand maybe a little worse， he shoved him against the soft pinebackground he used in his knife-throwing act， so quick the ringmasterdidn’t have time to think， and there， before the audience，De Ville kept the air on fire with his knives， sinking them intothe wood all around the ring-master so close that they passedthrough his clothes and most of them bit into his skin.
“The clowns had to pull the knives out to get him loose， forhe was pinned fast. So the word went around to watch out forDe Ville， and no one dared be more than barely civil to hiswife. And she was a sly bit of baggage， too， only all handswere afraid of De Ville.
“But there was one man， Wallace， who was afraid of nothing.