The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings Part 21

"Don't eat everything they have," he warned laughingly.

"Plenty more where this came from. That's one good thing about a show."

"What's that?"

"If the food gives out they can eat the animals."

"Better look out that the animals don't make a meal of you."

"Joining out?" asked the man sitting next to Phil.

"Yes, sir."

"Ring act?"

"I don't know yet what I am to do. Mr. Sparling is giving me a chance to find out what I am good for, if anything," smiled Phil.

"Boss is all right," nodded the circus man. "That was a good stunt you did this afternoon. Why don't you work that up?"

"I--I'll think about it." Phil did not know exactly what was meant by the expression, but it set him to thinking, and out of the suggestion he was destined to "work up" something that was really worthwhile, and that was to give him his first real start in the circus world.

"What's that funny-looking fellow over there doing?" interrupted Teddy.

"That man down near the end of the table?"

"Yes."

"That's Billy Thorpe, the Armless Wonder," the performer informed him.

"And he hasn't any hands?" wondered the boy.

"Naturally not, not having any arms. He uses his feet for hands."

"What's he doing now?"

"Eating with his feet. He can use them almost as handily as you can your hands. You should see Billy sew, and write and do other things. Why, they say he writes the best foot of anybody in the show."

"Doesn't he ever get cold feet?" questioned Teddy humorously.

"Circus people are not afflicted with that ailment. Doesn't go well with their business."

"May I ask what you do?" inquired Phil.

"I am the catcher in the princ.i.p.al trapeze act. You may have seen me today. I think you were in the big top then."

"Oh, yes, I saw you this afternoon."

"How many people are with the show?" asked Teddy.

"At a rough guess, I should say a hundred and fifty including canvasmen and other labor help. It's a pretty big organization for a road show, the biggest in the country; but it's small, so small it would be lost if one of the big railroad shows was around."

"Is that another armless or footless wonder next to Billy Thorpe?" asked Teddy.

"It's a freak, yes, but with hands and feet. That's the living skeleton, but if he keeps on eating the way he's been doing lately the boss will have to change the bills and bill him as the fattest man on earth."

"Huh!" grunted Teddy. "He could crawl through a rat hole in a barn door now. He's thin enough to cut cheese with."

Phil gave his companion a vigorous nudge under the table.

"You'll get into trouble if you are so free in expressing your opinions," he whispered. "Don't forget the advice Mr. Sparling gave you."

"Apple or custard pie?" broke in the voice of the waiter.

"Custard," answered Phil.

"Both for mine," added Teddy.

He got what he had ordered and without the least question, for the Sparling show believed that the best way to make its people contented was to feed them.

Mr. Sparling and his a.s.sistants, Phil observed, occupied a table by themselves. After he had finished the owner motioned to him to join them, and there Mrs. Sparling made a place for him by her side and thanked him briefly but warmly for his brave act.

"I shall have to keep an eye on you two boys," she smiled. "Any time I can help you with advice or otherwise you come right to me. Don't you be backward about doing so, will you?"

Phil a.s.sured her that he would not.

The two lads after some further conversation strolled from the cook tent.

"I think I'll go in and see how the animals are getting along,"

decided Phil, beginning to realize that he was free to go where he would and without fear of being ordered off.

Already people were gathering in front of the entrance for the night performance. The doors were advertised to open at seven o'clock, so that the spectators might have plenty of time in which to view the collection of "rare and wonderful beasts, gathered from the remote places of the earth," as the announcer proclaimed from the vantage point of a dry goods box.

Phil bought a bag of peanuts and took them in to his friend Emperor, the beast uttering a shrill cry of joy when he saw Phil approaching.

"I'll try to teach him my whistle," said the boy, puckering his lips and giving the signal that the boys of his school used in summoning each other.

"Think he'll remember that, Mr. Kennedy?" he asked of the trainer.

"Never forget it, will you, Emperor?"

The elephant coughed.

"Never forgets anything. Knows more than any man in the show now, because he has lived longer."

"How old is he?"

"Close to a hundred."

"You don't say?" marveled Teddy. "Hope I'll be able to squeal as loud as that when I'm a hundred. Has he got a hole through his trunk?"