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"Hello, Jerry!" cried Darn in a loud voice, so that everybody would know he knew Jerry, and swaggered up close to the elephant. "How does it seem to be ridin' on an el'funt?" "Fine!" Jerry exclaimed ecstatically. "Don't you wish you was up here?" Danny asked in a voice that was not nearly so friendly as Jerry's had been. "Anybody would, I guess," was Darn's reply. "Well, you ain't," said Danny.
Down here to-day with an el'funt and what's left of a busted circus, and singin' brag songs, when there ain't a man in this county but what knows Smyrna never had the gristle to put up a fight man-fashion at a firemen's muster. Vienny can shake one fist at ye and run ye up a tree. Vienny has allus done it. Vienny allus will do it. Ye can't fight!"
I never even once thought of your runnin' away. You thought of it yourself, now didn't you?" "Yes," Jerry admitted. "Mother'd think I had done something to you when I ain't, have I?" Danny appealed. "You wouldn't let me play " Jerry began but was interrupted by Danny's saying quickly: "You can next time we play circus, when I've had a chance to make the el'funt skin over for you."
"Please do, Jerry. I'm sorry I didn't play fair, Jerry." "I won't," pouted Jerry. "He said I could be the el'funt some of the time." "Mebbe he'll let you after while, after he's tired of playin' it," suggested Nora, without any great fervor of conviction in her voice. "I'll ask him to." With that Nora left the room.
"Let's not have no trained seal," pleaded Jerry. "It ain't no fun." "We got to have a trained seal," replied Danny. "You be it then," suggested Jerry, "an' let me be the el'funt. You said I could part of the time." "I'm going to be the el'funt," proclaimed Danny. "The circus ain't even begun yet." "I won't be a trained seal, so I won't," said Jerry, at last catching up with the parade.
"Come on an' play, Jerry," coaxed Danny, "an' you can be the el'funt the next time we play circus." "I want to be the el'funt this time," said Jerry. "You can't be this time, because you're too little for the costume to fit you," Danny told him. "It'll have to be cut down an' made over for you.
"The el'funt I play is goin' to have a tail all right," Danny informed the children collectively. "I ain't goin' to all the work of makin' a tail and then not wear it. I guess a el'funt's got some kind of a tail, anyway." The first and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they began to don their costumes.
"I'm a el'funt," said Danny proudly, "an' I jump the fence like the circus el'funt." "An el'funt!" cried Darn, turning his eyes up to the sky. "And he calls that an' el'funt!" "It is a el'funt," protested Jerry. Darn Darner laughed derisively. "You can 'maginary it's a el'funt," Chris explained. "It would take some imagination," was Darn's only comment on that.
"We can't have a circus with just a el'funt," said Celia Jane. "Of course, we can't," said Danny decisively and turned to Jerry. "What else'll we have?" "Couldn't we have more'n one el'funt?" Jerry asked hopefully. "What'd we want with more'n one el'funt?" Danny queried in scorn. "I guess one el'funt's enough for one circus. Anyway, we want something besides el'funts." "What?" asked Jerry.
Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a moment from the dazzling poster. Curiosity soon got the better of Chris and he started to walk back. "El'funt!" shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster. His shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the billboard. "The circus!" cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine years.
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