uivered with yearning terror and the boys burnished up
forgotten cap pistols. He told of lions, tigers, elephants, bears, and
buffaloes, all of enormous size and strength of lung, so that before
many days had passed he had debarred himself, by whole-hearted lying,
from the very possibility of joining the expedition and seeing the
disillusionment of his public. With true artistic spirit he omitted all
mention of confining house or cage and bestowed the gift of speech upon
all the characters, whether brute or human, in his epic. The
merry-go-round he combined with the menagerie into a whole which was not
to be resisted.

"Und all the am'blins," he informed his entranced listeners; "they goes
around, und around, und around, where music plays und flags is. Und I
sets a lion und he runs around, und runs around, und runs around.
Say--what you think? He had smiling looks und hair on the neck, und
sooner he says like that 'I'm awful thirsty,' I gives him a peanut und I
gets a golden ring."

"Where is it?" asked the jealous and incredulous Patrick.

"To my house." Isaac valiantly lied, for well he remembered the scene in
which his scandalized but sympathetic uncle had discovered his attempt
to purloin the brass ring which, with countless blackened duplicates, is
plucked from a slot by the brandishing swords of the riders upon the
merry-go-round. Truly, its possession had won him another ride--this
time upon an elephant with upturned trunk and wide ears--but in his mind
the return of that ring still ranked as the only grief in an otherwise
perfect day.

Miss Bailey--ably assisted by AEsop, Rudyard Kipling, and Thompson
Seton--had prepared the First Reader Class to accept garrulous and
benevolent lions, cows, panthers, and elephants, and the exploring
party's absolute credulity encouraged Isaac to higher and yet higher
flights, until Becky was strengthened against temptation.

At last, on a Sunday in late June, the cavalcade in splendid raiment met
on the wide steps, boarded a Grand Street car, and set out for Paradise.
Some confusion occurred at the very beginning of things when Becky
Zalmonowsky curtly refused to share her pennies with the conductor. When
she was at last persuaded to yield, an embarrassing five minutes was
consumed in searching for the required amount in the nooks and crannies
of her costume where, for safe-keeping, she had cached her fund. One
penny was in her shoe, another in her stocking, two in the lini