gnes leaned against
the tree trunk and watched him.

"A nice old place you've got here. They tell me it's called 'the Old
Corner House.' That's the way I was directed here. And so that rascal of
mine's been here all winter? Nice, soft spot he fell into."

"It was I that came near falling," said Agnes, gravely, "and it wasn't a
soft spot at all under that tree. I'd have been hurt if it hadn't been
for Neale."

"Hel-_lo_!" exclaimed Neale's uncle, sharply. "What's this all about?
That rascal been playin' the hero again? My, my! It ought to be a big
drawin' card when we play this town in August. He always _was_ a good
number, as Master Jakeway in high and lofty tumbling; when he rode
bareback; or doing the Joey----"

"The Joey?" repeated the girl, interested, but puzzled.

"That's being a clown, Miss. He has doubled as clown and bareback when
we was short of performers and having a hard season."

"Our Neale?" gasped Agnes.

"Humph! Dunno about his being _yours_," said Sorber, with twinkling
eyes. "He's mine, I reckon, by law."

Agnes bit her lip. It made her angry to have Sorber talk so confidently
about his rights over poor Neale.

"Let me tell you how he came here," she said, after a moment, "and what
he's done since he came to Milton."

"Fire away, Miss," urged the showman, clasping his pudgy hands, on a
finger of one of them showing the enormous seal ring.

Agnes "began at the beginning," for once. She did not really know why
she did so, but she gave the particulars of all that had happened to
Neale--as she knew them--since he had rushed in at that gate the man had
so lately entered and saved her from falling into the big peachtree by
the bedroom window.

Mr. Sorber's comments as she went along, were characteristic. Sometimes
he chuckled and nodded, anon he scowled, and more than once he rapped
his bootleg soundly with the whip.

"The little rascal!" he said at last. "And he could have stayed with us,
hived up as us'al in the winter with only the critters to nuss and tend,
and been sure of his three squares.

"What does he rather do, but work and slave, and almost freeze and
starve--jest to git what, I ax ye?"

"An education, I guess," said Agnes, mildly.

"Huh!" grunted Sorber. Then he was silent; but after a while he said:
"His father all over again. Jim O'Neil was a kid-gloved chap. If he
could have let drink alone, he never would have come down to us show
people.

"Huh! Well, my sister was as