n among them wants to try it. Nobody stirs, till at last a tipsy
country-jake is seen making his way down from one of the top-seats
towards the ring. He can hardly walk, he is so drunk, and the clown has
to help him across the ring-board, and even then he trips and rolls over
on the sawdust, and has to be pulled to his feet. When they bring him up
to the horse, he falls against it; and the little fellows think he will
certainly get killed. But the big boys tell the little fellows to shut
up and watch out. The ring-master and the clown manage to get the
country-jake on to the broad platform on the horse's back, and then the
ring-master cracks his whip, and the two supes who have been holding the
horse's head let go, and the horse begins cantering round the ring. The
little fellows are just sure the country-jake is going to fall off, he
reels and totters so; but the big boys tell them to keep watching out;
and pretty soon the country-jake begins to straighten up. He begins to
unbutton his long gray overcoat, and then he takes it off and throws it
into the ring, where one of the supes catches it. Then he sticks a short
pipe into his mouth, and pulls on an old wool hat, and flourishes a
stick that the supe throws to him, and you see that he is an Irishman
just come across the sea; and then off goes another coat, and he comes
out a British soldier in white duck trousers and red coat. That comes
off, and he is an American sailor, with his hands on his hips dancing a
hornpipe. Suddenly away flash wig and beard and false-face, the
pantaloons are stripped off with the same movement, the actor stoops for
the reins lying on the horse's neck, and James Rivers, the greatest
three-horse rider in the world nimbly capers on the broad pad, and
kisses his hand to the shouting and cheering spectators as he dashes
from the ring past the braying and bellowing brass-band into the
dressing-room!

The big boys have known all along that he was not a real country-jake;
but when the trained mule begins, and shakes everybody off, just like
the horse, and another country-jake gets up, and offers to bet that he
can ride that mule, nobody can tell whether he is a real country-jake or
not. This is always the last thing in the performance, and the boys have
seen with heavy hearts many signs openly betokening the end which they
knew was at hand. The actors have come out of the dressing-room door,
some in their everyday clothes, and some with just overcoa