If I Were You by L. Ron Hubbard Page A

cage, staring in at Jerry Gordon, all buried underneath the savage cats!
    Here he was safe. He had turned the tables again. There was Gordon in his rightful self. Here was he, Tommy—
    Jerry Gordon, beneath the howling hell, blazed away hysterically with his revolver, straight up into the bodies of the brutes. But the bite of powder had only one effect. They had forgotten Gordon. They had been intent upon killing one another. But the sting in the bellies of the lion and the tiger made them leap back away from one another and see their original goal.

    Jerry Gordon, beneath the howling hell, blazed away hysterically with his revolver, straight up into the bodies of the brutes.
     
    Gordon tried to get up, but even he understood that he would never make it. His whip had vanished. His chair was a mound of splintered wreckage. And now, as he yanked on his trigger, his shots only infuriated the animals more, only drew their attention to him, only started their charge—the last charge Jerry Gordon would ever see.
    The petrified menagerie men had brought up the tear gas, but so seldom had it been used that the one who threw the bombs did not pull the catch. Harmlessly they rolled around on the sawdust, trampled presently out of sight.
    The pikes were not long enough, and the wielders showed no taste for going into that cage through the main door.
    Safe outside, Little Tom Little watched. There was something all wrong about this, something horrible. He was the cause of Jerry Gordon’s coming death. He had done this to the man—and then he had slipped out of there, to remain safe and sound outside those bars. Coward! This was certain proof of it. Craven coward, that’s what he was, to cause another man’s death and then let him die!
    But a midget thirty inches tall was only a mouthful for any one of these brutes. He would last no longer than Gordon. But he had caused it. He had done this thing to an innocent man.
    It was too much to bear. Safety was nothing compared to these thoughts. With a sharp cry to Gordon, Little Tom Little snatched a torch from an attendant’s paralyzed hand and slid through the bars!
    He was shaking so in his terror that he could scarcely keep the grip upon the weapon. But he made himself lunge forward like a fencer, straight into the face of the tiger which sprang upon Gordon.
    The brute got the torch halfway down its throat. It halted and spun about, and leaped away with a yowl of pain. And the lion on the right transferred his attention to the midget. The lion sprang, got the torch in his chest, and went yelping for the chutes.
    Another tiger sprang and another tiger stopped, bowling Tommy over and over, but running out instantly just the same. Battered, Tommy got up. Berserk with rage, he completely forgot his size for the first time in his life. Like a small javelin tipped with flame, he sizzled into the press of fighting cats around Gordon.
    They raked at the torch. They screamed. They reared back and fell over themselves to get out of the way. And then they saw their fellows heading for the dark safety of the chute, and, nose to tail, the remainder of the forty plunged out of sight.
    The arena was empty of cats. The dust hung in the clash of spotlights. The smoke of the torch wreathed upward to blacken Tommy’s face.
    Gordon, lying on his side, groaned and turned a little. Then he was still. The bars came down, blocking off the chute.
    There was no danger now.
    Tommy let the torch fall and stared down at his small hands. He wondered if he were going to be so very ill. It was almost certain that he would be.
    There was a clanging and a clatter and the door came open. But it was not an attendant. It was Betty, and her tinsel crown was all in disarray and her fingers were bleeding from tearing so long at the jammed safety lock. She flung herself down beside Jerry, feeling for his heart, trying to cushion his bleeding head.
    Men began to swarm into the place. The din out of five thousand throats came