VIII

Although the lion looked very terrible, the Doctor tried hard not to seem afraid of him.

“I didn’t ask you to eat them,” he said quietly. “And besides, they’re not dirty. They’ve all had a bath this morning. Your coat looks as though it needed brushing⁠—badly. Now listen, and I’ll tell you something: the day may come when the lions get sick. And if you don’t help the other animals now, the lions may find themselves left all alone when they are in trouble. That often happens to proud people.”

“The lions are never in trouble⁠—they only make trouble,” said the Leader, turning up his nose. And he stalked away into the jungle, feeling he had been rather smart and clever.

Then the leopards got proud too and said they wouldn’t help. And then of course the antelopes⁠—although they were too shy and timid to be rude to the Doctor like the lion⁠— they pawed the ground, and smiled foolishly, and said they had never been nurses before.

And now the poor Doctor was worried frantic, wondering where he could get help enough to take care of all these thousands of monkeys in bed.

But the Leader of the Lions, when he got back to his den, saw his wife, the Queen Lioness, come running out to meet him with her hair untidy.

“One of the cubs won’t eat,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with him. He hasn’t taken a thing since last night.”

And she began to cry and shake with nervousness⁠—for she was a good mother, even though she was a lioness.

So the Leader went into his den and looked at his children⁠—two very cunning little cubs, lying on the floor. And one of them seemed quite poorly.