"I'll show you," Danny boasted and quickly divested himself of the
elephant's skin.

"Take a board," cautioned Chris, "an' then you can keep him from runnin'
in on you." Chris followed his own advice and Darn, seeing himself
attacked from two sides, one of his foes armed, decided he would live to
fight another day and scrambled over the fence.

"Yah!" he cried in derision from the alley. "Dumb-heads! Dumb-heads! Oh,
Chris, you blue-eyed beauty, turn around and do your duty! Blue-eyed
beauty!"

He dodged just in time to avoid the board which Chris, incensed at that
most horrible of epithets--for his eyes were blue--had hurled at him
with all his might.

"Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed
beauty!" chanted Darn, thrusting his face between two palings of the
fence and sticking out his tongue.

Then Danny picked up a board and, flanked by Chris, advanced to the
fence, whereat Darn took to his heels, shouting, "Blue-eyed beauty! Ole
Danny dumb-head!" as loud as he could.

At the end of the alley he turned and shouted,

"A pants' leg for an el'funt's tail! Oh, my gorry!"

When he disappeared from sight, the three boys surveyed the elephant's
skin lying on the ground.

"Let's not play any more," said Danny.

"I'm tired of the ole circus, anyway," replied Chris.

They went into the house, Jerry slowly following them. Even he could not
'maginary the old green wrapper and the stuffed brown coat sleeve and
blue trouser leg into an elephant any more.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHILDREN THAT CRIED IN THE LANE

The days slipped by and none of the children played circus again. Jerry
thought of it often and would have liked to be the elephant just once,
but he never said anything. That made him dream all the more about the
real circus which was coming and wish that he could see it. He was very
careful not to put his longing into words, so he wouldn't remind Mother
'Larkey of the ends that wouldn't meet and make her feel badly. One day
she came across the old green wrapper elephant skin in the woodshed.

"Why don't you children play circus any more?" she asked Danny.

"El'funts don't look like that," he asserted, pointing disdainfully at
the discarded costume. "Their tails are small like a rope."

"Are they now?" she asked. "And how might you be after knowing that?"

"National history says so," Danny replied in a very decisive tone.

Mrs. Mullarkey gave one of those low, fleeti