"Asseverated" is a word in ENGLISH

One day an out of work mime is visiting the zoo and attemptsto earn some money as a street performer. Unfortunately, assoon as he starts to draw a crowd, a zoo keeper grabs him anddrags him into his office. The zoo-keeper explains to the mime that the zoo's mostpopular attraction, a gorilla, has died suddenly and thekeeper fears that attendance at the zoo will fall off. Heoffers the mime a job to dress up as the gorilla until theycan get another one. The mime accepts. So the next morning the mime puts on the gorilla suit andenters the cage before crowd comes. He discovers that it's agreat job. He can sleep all he wants, play and make fun ofpeople and he draws bigger crowds than he ever did as a mime.However, eventually the crowds tire of him and he tires ofjust swinging on tires. He begins to notice that the people are paying moreattention to the lion in the cag e next to his. Not wanting tolose the attention of his audience, he climbs to the top ofhis cage, crawls across a partition, and dangles from the topto the lion's cage. Of course, this makes the lion furious,but the crowd loves it. At the end of the day the zoo-keepercomes and gives the mime a raise for being such a goodattraction. Well, this goes on for some time, the mime keeps tauntingthe lion, the crowds grow larger, and his salary keeps goingup. Then one terrible day when he is dangling over thefurious lion, he slips and falls. The mime is terrified. Thelion gathers itself and prepares to pounce. The mime is so scared that he begins to run round and roundthe cage with the lion close behind. Finally, the mime startsscreaming and yelling, "Help, Help me!" but the lion is quickand pounces. The mime soon finds himself flat on his back looking up atthe angry lion and the lion says, " Shut up you idiot! Do youwant to get us both fired?"