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The biggest lion in captivity, somehow in the excitement had managed to escape from his cage. "Now there'll be a panic for sure! They've seen him!" "Sit still and keep still! He won't hurt you!" shouted Phil. "Now, you get out of here!" commanded Phil, starting toward Wallace and cracking the ringmaster's whip in the animal's face.
He almost longed to be out there now, in the thick of it, with good old Joey Grinaldi at his side, dodging the ringmaster's lash and grinning at the jokes of the veteran. The girl came straight up to him, her anxious gaze sweeping the interior. She was about to speak to him, but changed her mind and hurried on to her dressing-room. An instant later she was back, greatly agitated.
Fortunately he was dropping feet first, due to his instant obedience of the ringmaster's order. Perhaps that alone saved the Circus Boy from breaking his neck, for so dizzy was he that he was unable to tell whether he was dropping feet or head first. He alighted on his feet and the ringmaster caught him deftly. "Stand steady a minute, till you get your bearings, Phil."
All at once the ringmaster fixed a cold eye on Teddy. "Hey, you!" Teddy gave no heed to him. "Get out of there! Think you own this show?" The lad made believe that he did not hear. The ringmaster's long whip lash curled through the air, going off with a crack that sounded as if a pistol had been fired, and within an inch of Teddy's nose.
His confidence in his little Circus Boy was not wholly lost yet. "Keep her up! Keep her up! What ails you?" snapped Phil. All the grit in the lad's slender body seemed to come to the front now. His eyes were flashing and he gripped the little riding whip as if he would vent his anger upon it. The ringmaster's whip had exploded again and the gray began to gallop.
Tweetle!" sang the ringmaster's whistle after the spectacle had wound its way once around the concourse. At this the procession wheeled, its head cutting between the two rings, slowly and majestically reaching for the paddock and dressing tent, where the performers would hurry into their costumes for their various acts to follow. This left only the elephants in the ring.
With an amused glance at his fallen adversaries Phil ran to the big top, less than a rod away, and, lifting the sidewall, slipped under and disappeared within. "Tweetle! Tweetle!" Two rippling blasts from the ringmaster's whistle notified the show people that the performance was on.
Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he WAS the sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't a been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars.
But the announcer himself lost his almost invincible sang-froid; in all his matchless vocabulary there were no sounding phrases ready for this occasion, and little Werther strutted in the centre of the great arena, rising to his opportunity. He imitated the ringmaster's phraseology. "La-a-a-dies and gen'l'mun, the price has gone up.
This passed off without incident, Teddy and his mule doing nothing more sensational than kicking a rent in the ringmaster's coat. After the show was over, and the tents had begun to come down, Phil announced his intention of going downtown for a lunch. "This fresh air makes me hungry. You see, I am not used to it yet," he explained in an apologetic tone.
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