roprietor didn't know it was Peep O'Day--a queer figure in his rumpled
black clothes and his red-topped brass-toed boots, and with one hand
holding fast to the string of a captive toy balloon. Behind him, in an
uneven jostling formation, followed many small boys and some small
girls. A census of the ranks would have developed that here were
included practically all the juvenile white population who otherwise,
through a lack of funds, would have been denied the opportunity to
patronize this circus or, in fact, any circus.

Each member of the joyous company was likewise the bearer of a toy
balloon--red, yellow, blue, green, or purple, as the case might be. Over
the line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding
and twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away,
at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been
disposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed but
full-pocketed, marveling at the stroke of luck that enabled him to take
an afternoon off and rest his voice.

Out of a seemingly bottomless exchequer Peep O'Day bought tickets of
admission for all. But this was only the beginning. Once inside the tent
he procured accommodations in the reserved-seat section for himself and
those who accompanied him. From such superior points of vantage the
whole crew of them witnessed the performance, from the thrilling grand
entry, with spangled ladies and gentlemen riding two by two on
broad-backed steeds, to the tumbling bout introducing the full strength
of the company, which came at the end.

They munched fresh-roasted peanuts and balls of sugar-coated popcorn,
slightly rancid, until they munched no longer with zest but merely
mechanically. They drank pink lemonade to an extent that threatened
absolute depletion of the fluid contents of both barrels in the
refreshment stand out in the menagerie tent. They whooped their
unbridled approval when the wild Indian chief, after shooting down a
stuffed coon with a bow and arrow from somewhere up near the top of the
center pole while balancing himself jauntily erect upon the haunches of
a coursing white charger, suddenly flung off his feathered headdress,
his wig and his fringed leather garments, and revealed himself in pink
fleshings as the principal bareback rider.

They screamed in a chorus of delight when the funny old clown, who had
been forcibly deprived of three tin flutes in rapid succession, now