Moon-Face & Other Stories/The Leopard Man’s Story

The Leopard Man's StoryHe 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 he did not
look it. His business in life, whereby he lived, was to appear in a
cage of performing leopards before vast audiences, and to thrill
those audiences by certain exhibitions of nerve for which his
employers 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 he seemed not so much oppressed by gloom as by a
sweet and gentle sadness, the weight of which was as sweetly and
gently borne. For an hour I had been trying to get a story out of
him, but he appeared to lack imagination. To him there was no romance
in his gorgeous career, no deeds of daring, no thrills–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 hour once.
Just hit him on the nose every time he rushed, and when h

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