he fountain. Pa yelled and talked profane, and told
'em to bring a cannon and kill the elephant, which kept ducking him with
his trunk, and swabbing out the bottom of the fountain basin with pa. It
seemed as though he never would get through using pa for a mop, but
finally the people got a rope around pa, and a keeper got an iron hook
in the elephant's ear, and they pulled pa out on one side, and got the
elephant away on the other side, and just then the callipoe, that ends
the parade, came by us and played the "Blue Danube," and the elephant
got on his hind feet and waltzed on the pavement. They put pa and the
Circassian beauties in a patrol wagon and took them to the show lot, and
I sat by the driver, and he let me drive the team.

[Illustration: The Elephant Kept Ducking Pa and Swabbing Out the Bottom
of the Fountain.]

Pa had his sheik clothes rolled up around his waist, and was wringing
them out, and talking awful sassy, and when we got to the lot it took a
long time to convince the policemen that we were not guilty of
disorderly conduct, and just then the elephant came tearing by us, with
the keeper on horseback behind him, prodding him in the ham every jump
with a sharp iron, and he went through the side of the tent as though he
was mighty sorry he didn't kill us all.

They made him get down on his knees and bellow in token of surrender,
and then we all went and changed our clothes for the afternoon
performance. As we passed through the menagerie tent, dripping, every
animal set up a yell, as much as to say: "There, maybe you will give
cayenne pepper to a pious sacred cow again, confound you," and that
convinces me that animals are human.

The last week has been the hardest on pa of any week since we have been
out with the circus. The trouble with pa is that he wants to be "Johnny
on the spot," as the boys say, and if anything breaks he volunteers to
go to work and fix it, and if anybody is sick or disabled, he wants to
take their place, as he says so he will learn everything about the
circus, and be competent to run a show alone next year.

But it was a mean trick the principal owner of the show played on pa at
Canton, O. You see John L. Sullivan used to do a boxing act with this
show, years ago, and everybody likes John, and when he shows up where
the show gives a performance he has the freedom of the whole place, and
everybody about the show is ready to fall over themselves to do John L.
a service.

Wel