When it was overtaxed, as the number of animals exhibited
increased, an adjacent property had been acquired and annexed. So the
Choragium had been created and extended till it now covered many acres and
had many courtyards, all arcaded on all sides. Under the arcades were set
as many cages as they could accommodate; when the beasts were too numerous
for their cages to be all under the arcades some were stood out in the
courtyards.
I was comfortably housed in light, airy, roomy, clean and well-furnished
quarters on one of the biggest courtyards. From dawn after my first
night's sleep there I was busy quelling vicious beasts so their cages
could be cleaned; keeping others quiet while the beast-surgeons dressed
wounds inflicted by their captors or keepers or sores caused by their
confinement; inducing others to swallow the remedies the animal-doctors
thought good for them; leading beasts out of their cages into others; and
so on.
* * * * *
Before I had been a full day at my duties the procurator of the Beast-
Barracks complimented me, declared that I was his very ideal of just the
kind of man he had always needed and wanted, averred that I was already
indispensable and vowed that he could not conceive how he or the Choragium
had ever gotten on without me.
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