yourself. We're working that way, and we're going to have a
performance there.'

'At Chesterham!' cried Jimmy, feeling extremely relieved.

'You'll be there before the end of the week,' said the clown; 'and I
should think your father would come down handsome.'

Now Jimmy began to feel quite contented again, and there was so much to
look at that he forgot everything else.

When he was at school at Ramsgate he had seen a circus going in a
procession through the town, and now Nan told him that this circus was
going in a procession, and that it would start at half-past twelve.
Everybody seemed very busy making ready for it, men were attending to
the horses, and the gilded chariots were being prepared, and presently
Nan began to dress.

'What are you going to be?' asked Jimmy, as she took a bright-looking
helmet from under her bed.

'Don't you know?' she answered. 'Why, I'm Britannia.'

A little later she left the van with the helmet on her head, and a large
thing which looked like a pitchfork in one hand. In the other she
carried a shield, and her white dress had flags all over it. By this
time one of the gilded chariots had been made very high; it seemed to be
almost as high as a house, and on the top was a seat. Nan climbed up to
this seat and sat down, and then a black man led Billy the lion out of
his cage with a chain round his neck, and it was funny to see the lion
climb up to the place where Nan was sitting and quietly lie down by her
side.

The clown was standing on a white horse, with a long pair of reins
driving another white horse; but the black man who had led the lion
drove eight horses, and then there was a band, in red, and two
elephants, and everybody in the circus except some of the children and a
few women formed a part of the long procession.

CHAPTER XI

JIMMY RUNS AWAY AGAIN

Now, Jimmy thought that he also would like to be in the procession. He
would have liked to dress up as Nan had done, although perhaps he would
not have cared to sit quite so close to the lion. They seemed to have
forgotten all about him, and he was left to do just as he liked. So what
he did was to walk beside the procession into the town, and then to run
on ahead to find a good place to see it pass.

He got back to the van long before Nan and her father, and being quite
alone, he began to look about him. Hanging on a peg, he saw a lot of old
clothes, which seemed rather interesting, especially one suit that