of a name is that--Elbow! Might as well be Neck--or Foot."

"It's just as good as Danny Mullarkey!" declared Jerry.

"There's nothing the matter with your name, Jerry," interposed Nora.
"Eat the core of your apple," she continued, pointing at it, forgotten,
but still clutched tightly in his fist.

"I don't want the old core," said Jerry and threw it against the
billboard.

Celia Jane ran after it, grabbed it eagerly, wiped it off on her skirt
and popped it into her mouth.

"Celia Jane!" called Nora, "Don't you eat that core after it's been in
the dirt."

But Celia Jane had quickly chewed and swallowed it. "It's gone," she
said. "Besides, it wasn't dirty enough to amount to anything."

Jerry had returned to contemplation of the elephant jumping the fence,
when a youthful voice called from across the street, "Look at it good,
kid. I guess it's about all of the circus you'll see."

Jerry and the Mullarkey children turned and faced the speaker. It was
"Darn" Darner, the ten-year old son of Timothy Darner, the county
overseer of the poor, and a more or less important personage, especially
in his own eyes. You had to be very particular how you spoke to "Darn"
unless you wanted to get into a fight, and unless you were as old and as
big as he was you had no desire to fight with him. He was especially
touchy about his name. He had been "Jimmie" at home but once at school
he had signed himself, in the full glory of his name, J. Darnton Darner,
perhaps to do honor to his grandfather, after whom he had been named.
Thereafter "Darn" was the only name that he was known by outside of the
classroom and his own home.

He had fights innumerable trying to stop the boys calling him by that
name, but it persisted until at length he came to accept it. You could
call him "Darn" or shout "Oh, Darn!" and nothing would happen, but if,
in your excitement, you grew too emphatic and said "_Darn!_" or "Oh,
_Darn_!" you might have to run for the nearest refuge, or take a
pummeling from his fists.

So now Jerry answered very politely. "It looks good," he said.

"Is the circus coming?" asked Danny.

"Of course it is. What do you suppose they've put up the posters for?"

"It don't say so here," said Nora. "All it says is--"

Darn interrupted. "Where've you kids been? That old poster has been up
for a week. Two new ones were pasted up to-day--one at Jenkins' corner
and the other on Jeffreys' barn. It's Burrows and Fairchild's mammoth
ci