"My wife's; but that ain't nobody's business but ourn. You pass on."

The stranger declined, and fixing his muddled attention on what was going on in the ring, said:

"I can (hic) ride that horse-"

The words were no sooner uttered than the man stumbled upon the track, just after the horse had dashed past. The whole audience, except Colonel Grice and the select few, rose and cried out in horror.

"Take him out, Bill! Take him out!" cried Colonel Grice. Indeed, Mr. Bill had already slid his babies into his wife's lap, and was dragging the man out of the ring. He insisted upon returning.

"Look a-here, my friend," said Mr. Bill, “I don't know you, nor nobody else don't seem to know you; but if I didn't have Rom and Reme-"

The fellow made another rush. Mr. Bill took hold of him, but, receiving a trip, he fell flat, and the stranger fell into the ring, rolling out of the track in lucky time. The ring-master seemed much embarrassed.

“Oh, give him a little ride, captain!" cried out Colonel Grice. "If he falls, he's too drunk to git badly hurt."

"It's a shame, Mose!" remonstrated Miss Cash. "I did't come here and pay my money to see people killed. Notwithstandin' and never o'-the-less the poor creeter's drunk, and not hardly fitten to live, he ought by good rights to have some time to prepar' for the awful change that-"

But by this time Mazeppa was mounted and dashing away; and but that Miss Cash had made up her mind not to be cheated out of any portion of her money, she would have shut her eyes, or veiled her face, as the maddened animal sped along, while the infatuated inebriate clung to his mane. An anxious time it was. Kind-hearted people were sorry they had come. In the struggle between life and death, the stranger seemed to be beginning to sober. Sooner than could have been expected, he raised himself from the horse's neck (Miss Cash twisting her mouth and screwing her neck as he reeled back and forth from side to side), gathered up the reins, shook from his feet the thick shoes he was clad with, flung aside his old hat, brushed up his curly hair, and, before Miss Cash could utter a word, was on his

feet. Then began that prolonged metamorphosis which old Mr. Pate was never satisfied with recounting, whether to those who saw it or those who saw it not.

"Coat after coat, breeches after breeches, gallis after gallis, shirt after shirt, ontwell he shucked hisself nigh as clean as a ear o' corn."

When everybody saw that the stranger was one of the showmen, the fun rose to a height that delayed for full five minutes the next scene. As for Colonel Grice, his handkerchief was positively wet with the tears he had shed. Even Mr. Bill forgot his own discomfiture in the universal glee.

"It's a shame, Mose," said Miss Cash, "to put such a trick on Bill Williams, and that right where his wife is. It would be a good thing if he could put it back on you."

Even at this late day, a survivor of that period can scarcely recall without some exaltation of feeling that young girl of eleven (who had been advertised as "Mademoiselle Louise, the Most Celebrated Equestrienne in the world"), as she ran out with the daintiest of frocks, the pinkest of stockings, the goldenest of flounces, the bluest of belts, the curliest of hair, the peachiest of cheeks, kissed her hand to the audience, put one foot into the clown's hand, and flew into the saddle. As she went around, dancing upon that horse in full gallop, hopping over her whip and jumping through rings, and, when seated, smoothed down her skirt and waved her sleeveless arms-well, there was one boy (his name was Seaborn Byne) that declared he "would be dinged if it wasn't enough to melt the hearts clean outen a statchit." Other boys cordially endorsed this speech. As for Jack Watts, just turned of his tenth year, with the example before him of his older brother Tommy (dead in love at thirteen and some upwards, with Miss Wilkins the schoolmistress), he ran away from home the next morning, and followed for three miles the circus, begging to be taken into its employ, stipulating for only board and clothes. When caught, brought back, and properly attended to by his mother, the villain was suspected, and almost as good as confessed, that his purpose was to avail himself of an opportunity to seize upon the person of Mademoiselle Louise and her imagined vast treasures, and bear them to some distant foreign shore-on which one in special, in his exigent haste, he had not yet been able fully to determine.

In the interval before the last, named "The Wonderful Toothdrawing Coffee-pot Fire-cracker Scene," an incident occurred that was not on the programme—an interlude, as it were, improvised by the exuberant spirits of both spectators and showmen. Colonel Grice, deeply gratified at the success of what, without great stretch, might be called his own treat, was in the mood to receive special attention and compliment from any source. When the pretended inebriate had been lifted upon Mazeppa, the clown took a bottle from his pocket, tasted it when he had gotten behind his master, smacked his lips, set it down by the middle pole, and, being detected in one of his resortings to it, was reproached for not inviting some one to drink with him. They were on the portion of the ring next the main entrance.

"Why don't you invite Colonel Grice?" said Mr. Bill Williams, in a low voice. "He expects it."

The master turned to notice from whom the suggestion proceeded, and, before he could determine, the clown, though with some hesitation, said,

"If Colonel Grice-"

"Stop it!" whispered the master.

But it was too late. The Colonel had already risen, and was carefully descending.

"Is you goin' there, Mose, shore enough?" said Miss Cash. "It do look like Mose is complete carried away with them circus people and hisself."

Having gotten safely over the intervening heads and shoulders, the Colonel stepped with dignity into the ring, at the same time feeling somewhat of the embarrassment which will sometimes befall the very greatest warrior when, without his weapons, he knows himself to be the object of the attention of a large number of civilians, both male and female. This embarrassment hindered his observation of the captain's winks, and the clown's pouring a portion of the liquor upon the ground. He walked up rapidly and extended his hand. The clown, with an effort at mirthfulness, the more eager because he was doubtful of perfect success, withdrew the bottle from his grasp, spread out his legs, squatted his body, and, applying the thumb of his disengaged hand to his nose, wriggled his fingers at the Colonel's face, winking frantically the while, hoping the latter would advance the joke by insistence.

In this he miscalculated. Persons who claimed to have seen Colonel Moses Grice, on previous occasions, what was called mad, said that all these were childish fretfulness compared with his present condition of mind, when, after the withdrawal of the bottle, the whole audience, Miss Cash louder than all, broke into uproarious laughter. Fortunately the enraged chieftain had nor sword, nor pistol, nor even walking-cane. His only weapon was his tongue. Stepping back a pace or two, and glaring upon the ludicrous squatter, he shouted:

"You spotted-backed, striped-legged, streaked-faced, speckledb-breasted, p'inted-hatted son-of-a-gun!"

With each ejaculation of these successive, uncommon appellations, the poor clown lifted himself somewhat, and by the time their climax was reached was upright, and, dressed as he was, seemed most pitiful.

"My dear Colonel Grice-" he began.

"Shet up your old red mouth," broke in the Colonel. didn't want your whisky.

"I

I got better whisky at home than you know anything about. But as you asked me to drink, like, as I thought, one gentleman would ask another gentleman, I didn't feel like refusin' you. I give the whole of you your breakfast, your blasted varmints and all; I put at least twenty into your cussed old show, and after that—"

"My dear-est Colonel Grice!"

"Oh, you p'inted-hatted, streaked - fac-ed, speckled - bbreasted" beginning, as it were, a back-handed stroke by reversing the order of his epithets.

At this moment the ring-master, who had not been able thus far to get in a single word, said in a loud but calm tone:

"Colonel Grice, don't you see that it was a mere jest, and that the suggestion came from one of your neighbors? The bottle contains nothing but water. We beg your pardon if you are offended; but I can but think that the abusive words you have used already are quite enough."

had just been You put it onto

"Come, Mose! come!" cried Miss Cash, who able to stop her laughter. "Give and take, Mose. Bill Williams, and he stood it; and he put it back onto you, and now you can't stand it, eh?" And the old lady again fairly screamed with laughter, while hundreds of others joined.

The Colonel stood for a moment, hesitating. Then he sud