toward the door through which she had come. The girl murmured "Ai docssain, Tsammai," in a disappointed tone, gave Oliver a smile that would have stunned a harem guard, and disappeared again into her own territory.

Oliver, being neither Chesterfield nor eunuch, was left with the giddy sensation of a man struggling to regain his balance after a sudden earth temblor.

His client reoriented him brusquely, "Treat my bear," Mr. Furnay said.

"I've been waiting for help," Oliver said defensively. "If you'll send around your menagerie manager and a cage boy or two—"

"I have none," Mr. Furnay said shortly. "There are only the four of us here, and not one will approach within touching distance of a brute so vicious."

Oliver stared at him in astonishment.... Four of them meant only Bivins, the gateman, the lovely blonde creature who called herself Perrl-high-C-trill-and-A-above and Mr. Furnay himself.

"But four inexperienced people can't possibly look after a menagerie of this size!" Oliver protested. "Circus animals aren't house pets, Mr. Furnay—they're restless and temperamental, and they need expert care. They bite and claw each other—"

"There will be more of us later," Mr. Furnay said morosely, "but I doubt that numbers will help. We had not anticipated a ferocity so appalling, and I fear that my error may have proved the ruin of an expensive project. The native beasts were never so fierce on other—"

He broke off. "I am sorry. You will have to manage as best you can alone."

And he left the menagerie without looking back.

To deal tersely with subsequent detail, Oliver did manage alone—after a fashion and up to a point. It was a simple matter, once he found a four-foot length of conveniently loose board, to prod the unhappy bear from his larger prison to the smaller. The process of immobilizing the brute by winching the squeeze-cage tight was elementary.

But in his casting-back Oliver had overlooked two vitally important precautions: he'd forgotten to secure the gear fastenings, and he'd neglected to rope the smaller cage to the larger.

The bear, startled by the prick of the needle when Oliver gave him a sizable injection of nembutal, reacted with a frantic struggling that reversed the action of the 

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