ng to
hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels
flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing
up shouting and laughing till tears rolled down. And at last, sure
enough, all the circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away
he went like the very nation, round and round the ring, with that sot
laying down on him and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging
most to the ground on one side, and then t'other one on t'other side,
and the people just crazy. It warn't funny to me, though; I was all of
a tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle
and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this way and that; and the next
minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse
a-going like a house afire, too. He just stood up there, a-sailing
around as easy and comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his
life--and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He
shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he
shed seventeen suits. And, then, there he was, slim and handsome, and
dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that
horse with his whip and made him fairly hum--and finally skipped off,
and made his bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody
just a-howling with pleasure and astonishment.

Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he _was_ the
sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own
men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on
to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I
wouldn't 'a' been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand
dollars. I don't know; there may be bullier circuses than what that
one was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good
enough for _me_; and wherever I run across it, it can have all of _my_
custom every time.

Well, that night we had _our_ show; but there warn't only about twelve
people there--just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the
time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before
the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said
these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare; what they
wanted was low comedy--and maybe something ruther worse than low
comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next
morning he got some big sheets of wrapping-paper and some black pain