n't we, Tess?"

"Ye-es," grudgingly admitted the older girl. "If we _had_ to have a boy.
But, you know, Dot, we haven't _got_ to have one."

Mr. Sorber chuckled. "Don't you think boys are any good, little lady?"
he asked Tess.

"Not so very much," said the frank Tess. "Of course, Neale is different,
sir. He--he can harness Billy Bumps, and--and he can turn
cartwheels--and--and he can climb trees--and--and do lots of things
perfectly well. There aren't many boys like him."

"I guess there ain't," agreed Mr. Sorber. "And does he ever tell you how
he was took into the Lions' Den, like a little Dan'l, when he was two,
with spangled pants on him and a sugar lollypop to keep him quiet?"

"Mercy!" gasped Agnes.

"In a lions' den?" repeated Tess, while Dot's pretty eyes grew so round
they looked like gooseberries.

"Yes, Ma'am! I done it. And it made a hit. But the perlice stopped it.
Them perlice," said Mr. Sorber, confidentially, "are allus butting in
where they ain't wanted."

"Like Billy Bumps," murmured Dot.

But Tess had struck a new line of thought and she wanted to follow it
up. "Please, sir," she asked, "is that your business?"

"What's my business?"

"Going into lions' dens?"

"That's it. I'm a lion tamer, I am. And that's what I wanted to bring my
nevvy up to, only his mother kicked over the traces and wouldn't have
it."

"My!" murmured Tess. "It must be a very int'resting business. Do--do the
lions ever bite?"

"They chews their food reg'lar," said Mr. Sorber gravely, but his eyes
twinkled. "But none of 'em's ever tried to chew me. I reckon I look
purty tough to 'em."

"And Neale's been in a den of lions and never told us about it?" gasped
Agnes, in spite of herself carried away with the romantic side of the
show business again.

"Didn't he ever?"

"He never told us he was with a circus at all," confessed Agnes. "He was
afraid of being sent back, I suppose."

"And ain't he ever blowed about it to the boys?"

"Oh, no! He hasn't even told the school principal--or the man he lives
with--or Ruth--or _anybody_," declared Agnes.

Mr. Sorber looked really amazed. He mopped his bald crown again and the
color in his face deepened.

"Why, whizzle take me!" ejaculated the showman, in surprise, "he's
ashamed of us!"

Tess's kindly little heart came to the rescue immediately. "Oh, he
couldn't be ashamed of his uncle, sir," she said. "And Neale is, really,
a very nice boy. He would not be ashamed of