and he wishes he'd let the thing
alone. And Pa don't say anything then, but when we've eaten till we
can't eat any more, specially Pete, Pa says to Ma, 'Bill Thomson's been
runnin' that lunch counter for twenty years, to my knowledge, and he's
never made anything on it, to hear him talk. But I notice he's got
three nice houses all his own, and a fine trotting horse, and him an
express man, too, and I'll bet he ain't got all the money for them
houses outer the express business,' he says.

"'It's a good business, though,' says Ma.

"And Pa says, 'You bet it is, Ma, it's been good to us anyway.'

"Say, maybe my Pa don't know where to take folks at the exhibition.
There's mighty little we didn't see, I'm tellin' you; and chirpin' all
the while Pa was too. He's better than a minstrel show to go anywhere
with, my Pa is; he'd make even you laugh, Lucien. Well, anyway, along
about four o'clock Pa thinks we'd better see oner two of the shows in
the midway, so's we can get another meal in good time to see the night
doings in fronter the grand stand. So, us to the midway, and we ain't
more than half in when we runs across the wild beast show. There's a
cage on the platform in front of the show, with a pretty fierce lookin'
lion in it, and the spieler he's telling the folks how this lion has
eaten four or five people, and he ain't never been sub-dued. 'But,' he
says, 'Seenor'r Dan-rell-o will go into his cage at every performance,'
he says, 'at the peril of his life.'

"So, a young fellow what's listenin', he says kinder flip, 'Is the
peril much?'

"So the showman says he ain't answerin' no fool questions, but if
anybody what looks like they had brains is asking in-tell-i-gent
questions, he's ready to answer 'em.

"So the young fellow--he's a husky lookin' chap--he says the show's a
fake, and the man on the platform gives him a wipe over the head with a
whip he had. Then you'd oughter have seen things happen. That young
fellow's pal grabs the showman by the legs and pulls him down to the
ground and proceeds to hammer him some. The crowd's kinder excited and
shovin' around and saying things to each other without knowing what
they're doing, when the young fellow what really starts the row lets
out a yell you could hear a mile away, and the crowd hushes up kinder
sudden; I guess everybody got cold chills down their backs all at once.
While they're wondering what's coming next, the fellow puts out his
hand and grabs th