and Chris were left alone, there was an abashed
silence at first, broken after a minute by Chris' remarking:

"Gee, ain't it excitin', Jerry! Findin' your father and mother an' being
lifted up in a el'funt's trunk an' your father a clown in the circus and
all?"

"Yes," smiled Jerry with satisfaction. "He's the greatest clown ever
lived."

"I guess that's so," Danny stated judicially and also apologetically,
for he wished to make up with Jerry for getting his circus ticket away
from him.

"It is so!" cried Jerry emphatically.

"That's what I meant, Jerry--I mean, Gary." A silence fell and then
Danny continued: "I wish I'd never of asked Celia Jane to cry and get
your ticket away from you."

Jerry said nothing, as he remembered how Danny had tricked him, and
Danny, after shifting about uneasily, added as though in justification
of his action:

"If I hadn't of, you'd probably never of met your father. He couldn't of
spoken to you if he hadn't seen you before you got into the circus."

That impressed Jerry as a point of view that might be true and somehow
he didn't feel angry at Danny and Celia Jane any more. He was too happy
at having a clown for his father to hold resentment.

"Mebbe not," was all he said, but Danny took those words as meaning that
Jerry wasn't going to stay mad.

"How'd you get in?" he asked eagerly.

"Whiteface thought of a way that didn't cost any money," replied Jerry.

"What kind of a way was that?" Danny was all eagerness for information
of that sort.

"I don't know," said Jerry. "He thought of something an' told me to keep
my eyes shut an' I didn't see what he done."

"Didn't you open 'em jest once?" demanded Danny. "I would of and then
mebbe we could of got into other circuses that way."

"It might of mixed our thoughts, like when I said something when he told
me not to," Jerry observed.

"What d'you mean, mixin' your thoughts?"

Jerry was saved by the entrance of Mr. Burrows from trying to explain
just what he did mean by that, for he hadn't understood very well
himself. The circus man was smiling all over as he approached Jerry and
seemed just as pleased that Jerry had found his parents as Jerry was
himself.

"Well, well, well," he said, holding out a hand which Jerry accepted in
the same amicable spirit in which it was offered, "so you're the son of
Robert Bowe! We were good friends before you were stolen and I hope
will be again when you get reacquainted with me. Maybe