"Waggons!" says I. "You ain't travellin' with a retinue, are you?"

"That's the exact word for it," says he. And then Leonidas tells me
about the Sagawa aggregation. Ever see one of these medicine shows?
Well, that's what Leonidas had. He was sole proprietor and managing
boss of the outfit.

"We carry eleven people, including drivers and canvas men," says he,
"and we give a performance that the Proctor houses would charge
seventy-five a head for. It's all for a dime, too--quarter for
reserved--and our gentlemanly ushers offer the Sagawa for sale only
between turns."

"You talk like a three-sheet poster," says I. "Where you headed for
now?"

"We're making a hundred-mile jump up into the mill towns," says he,
"and before we've worked up as far as Providence I expect we'll have to
carry the receipts in kegs."

That was Leonidas, all over; seein' rainbows when other folks would be
predictin' a Johnstown flood. Just about then, though, the bottom
began to drop out of another cloud, so I lugged him over to the big
bubble and put him inside.

"Sadie," says I, "I want you to know an old side pardner of mine. His
name's Leonidas Dodge, or used to be, and there's nothing yellow about
him but his hair."

And say, Sadie hadn't more'n heard about the Sagawa outfit than she
begins to smile all over her face; so I guesses right off that she's
got tangled up with some fool idea.

"It would be such a change from the duchess if we could get Mr. Dodge
to stop over at Breeze Acres to-night and give his show," says Sadie.

"Madam," says Leonidas, "your wishes are my commands."

Sadie kept on grinnin' and plannin' out the program, while Leonidas
passed out his high English as smooth as a demonstrator at a food show.
Inside of ten minutes they has it all fixed. Then Sadie skips into the
little gate cottage, where the timekeeper lives, and calls up Pinckney
on the house 'phone. And say! what them two can't think of in the way
of fool stunts no one else can.

By the time she'd got through, the Sagawa aggregation looms up on the
road. There was two four-horse waggons. The front one had a tarpaulin
top, and under cover was a bunch of the saddest lookin' actorines and
specialty people you'd want to see. They didn't have life enough to
look out when the driver pulled up. The second waggon carried the
round top and poles.

"Your folks look as gay as a gang startin' off to do time on the
island," says I.

"They're not