The Lion-tamer

The tumultuous applause died down. The lion-tamer closed the cage door easily behind her and turned to the captivated audience.

'Thank you! Thank you!' she shouted. 'You are most generous and kind.'

She adjusted her red waistcoat and britches and lightly flicked her lion-tamer's stick.

'I expect that many of you here this evening have been surprised to see a slip of a girl like me control this cage of huge male lions. I expect that many of you held your breath when I put my head into Boris's massive jaws - he's the biggest of the big!' She laughed. The audience laughed, too.

'But you have no good reason to be surprised. We, all of us, live in an age in which brain controls brawn, in a society in which discipline and enlightenment have brought under control fierce and unacceptable animal instincts.

'Indeed, I assure you that you, any one of you, could walk through a parkland of lions such as mine without danger. And this would be down to the discipline instilled into them during their formative years and their sense of propriety ...'

The lion-tamer was interrupted by a peal of appreciative laughter.

'... and not at all to do with the divine intervention that saved the prophet Daniel. Did any of you wonder why my mother called me Daniella?'

Further light amusement.

'But, ladies and gentlemen, you don’t have to take my word for it. Let's put my proposition to the test!'

Daniella half turned and gave a wave of her stick to some unseen figure behind one of the circus tent's curtains. 

As if by magic, the steel safety cage separating the lions from the crowd began to ascend into the air towards the high dome of the tent.