s up ter-morrer like a
ringmaster in a sucuss, with high, shiny boots an' a long whip an a
tall, slick hat, an' crack his whip an' say: 'What will ther leetle lady
hev next?'"

Ben blushed, for his ambitions in the show line, now that he had had a
taste of it, had really been in that direction, only he wouldn't have
had the boys know it for the world.

"How about the show, anyhow, Ben?" asked Ted.

"What have you got? You might as well let us know now."

"Not on your autobiography," answered Ben haughtily. "I want to say,
though, that your eyes will bulge like the knobs on a washstand drawer
when you see what I've got, and then come to look at the bill for such a
stupendous, striking, and singularly successful aggregation of freaks,
acts, and divertisements embodied in this colossal and cataclysmic
congregation of--"

"Oh, cheese it," said Kit. "You give me the pip."

"All right, have it your own way," sighed Ben. "This is what a fellow
gets for serving his country, from Thomas Jefferson to John D.
Rockefeller."

"Come on," said Ted persuasively. "Loosen up and tell us what we are to
have to-morrow. This is an executive session of the whole."

"You're like a lot of kids the day before Christmas. You've just got to
see what mamma's hidden in the closet," said Ben. "Well, I'll let you in
on a little of it."

"Shoot when you're ready," said Kit.

"I was over at Strongburg about a month ago, and, knowing that I'd have
to rustle up a show soon, I wrote to a theatrical agent in Chicago to
let me know if he could furnish me with a good amusement company at
small cost. He wrote me that he had the very thing, and offered me one
of these bum 'wild west' shows, with a bunch of spavined ponies, a lot
of imitation cowboys, fake Indians, and Coney Island target shooters."

"An' yer didn't take 'em?" asked Bud, in surprise.

"Tush! Well, I was up against it, when Morrison, the hotel man, told me
that there was a showman in town, and perhaps I might get something out
of him.

"I hunted him up. He was a typical showman. Big fellow, large as a
Noah's ark, dressed like a sunset, and loud as an eighteen-inch gun."

"I saw the fellow in Soldier Butte the other day. He was talking to
Wiley Creviss in the bank," said Ted. "You've described him more
picturesquely than I should, but I'm convinced he's the same man."

"I asked him what he had, and he told me he could furnish me on short
notice anything from a three-ring circus