iranwire:

The king loved lions, regardless of whether they were wild or kept in captivity. He owned several of his own, which he kept in one of the first zoos in Iran, in east Tehran, which had been opened by his father. One day King Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, who ruled Persia from 1896 to 1907, decided to pay his lions a visit. But only a few days before, one of the lions had died. The zoo’s manager was scared, not wanting to disappoint the king, so he swept the truth under the carpet. He ordered one of the zoo employees to enter the cage and hide under the dead lion’s fur. He was given instructions to move a little if the king approached the enclosure, just enough to give the impression that the lion was stirring. In the end, the royal visit ended sooner than expected, the king did not visit the lion cage, and the man took a deep sigh of relief. Then, suddenly, while he was still under the lion’s fur, a leopard approached him. The employee froze. He was cornered; there was no means of escape. “Hey, how much did you get for this job?”, the leopard asked, as he unwrapped himself from his fur.

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