om; tom-tom; tom-tom"; the hollow thud of a little drum sounded
from the market-place. Boys and girls began to run thither, crying to
one another:--

"The Tumblers! The Tumblers have come. Hurry, oh, hurry!"

Three little brothers, Beppo, Giovanni, and Paolo, who had been poking
about the market at their mother's heels, pricked up their ears and
scurried eagerly after the other children.

Jostling one another good-naturedly, the crowd surged up to the
market-place, which stood upon a little hill. In the middle was a
stone fountain, whence the whole village was wont to draw all the water
it needed. In those long-ago days folk were more sparing in the use of
water than they are to-day, especially for washing. Perhaps we should
not be so clean, if we had to bring every bucket of water that we used
from the City Square!

"Tom-tom; tom-tom; tom-tom"; the little drum sounded louder and louder
as the crowd increased. Men and women craned their necks to see who
was beating it. The children squirmed their way through the crowd.

On the highest step of the fountain stood a man dressed in red and
yellow, with little bells hung from every point of his clothing, which
tinkled with each movement he made. In his left hand he held a small
drum, from which hung streamers of red and green and yellow ribbon.
This drum he beat regularly with the palm of his skinny right hand. He
was a lean, dark man, with evil little red-rimmed eyes and a hump
between his shoulders.

"Ho! Men and women! Lads and lasses!" he cried in a shrill, cracked
voice of strange accent. "Hither, hither quickly, and make ready to
give your pennies. For the tumbling is about to begin,--the most
wonderful tumbling in the whole round world!"

Stretching out his arm, he pointed to the group below him. The crowd
pressed forward and stood on tiptoe to see better. Beppo and Giovanni
and Paolo wriggled through the forest of legs and skirts and came out
into the open space which had been left about the fountain. And then
they saw what the backs of the butcher and baker and candlestick-maker
had hidden from them.

From the back of a forlorn little donkey that was tethered behind the
fountain a roll of carpet had been taken and spread out on the ground.
Beside this stood the three tumblers. One of them was a thin, dark
man, small and wicked-looking, dressed, like the drum-beater, in red
and yellow. The second tumbler was a huge fellow more than six fee