y got the whole
bunch ready for a long stay at Dwight, Ill., but the agent routed us
into Pennsylvania, and pa has had nothing but a series of disasters
since striking the state.

Pa gave notice that when we got to his old home, at Scranton, where he
lived when he was a boy, he wanted to sort of run things, so his old
neighbors would see that he had got up in the world since he left the
old town. So the manager gave pa about 400 free tickets to distribute
among his friends, and arranged for pa to show off as the leading
citizen in the show. He was offered a chance to take the place of the
clown, the ring master or anybody whose duty he thought he could
perform. Pa selected the place of driver of the Roman chariot with four
horses abreast, in place of the Irish Roman who was accustomed to drive
the chariot in the race with the female charioteer, a muscular girl who
used to clerk in a livery stable at Chicago.

The chariot race is a fake, because it is arranged for the girl to win,
so the audience will go wild and cheer her, so she has to come bowing
all around the ring. The way the job is put up is for the two chariots
to start, and go around twice. On the first turn the man driver is
ahead, and takes the pole, and on the second turn the girl's ahead, and
she takes the pole, and on the third turn the man is ahead, and they
begin to whip the horses, who seem crazy, and on the last stretch the
man holds his team back a little, and the girl passes him and comes out
a trifle ahead, and the crowd goes wild.

Well, the master of ceremonies coached pa about the business, and told
him what to do. They knew he could drive four horses, because he said he
was an old stage driver, and when he got in the chariot with the Roman
suit on gleaming with gold, and the brass helmet, and the cloth of gold
gauntlets, and stood up like a senator, gee, I was proud of him, and
when he and the female drove out of the dressing-room and halted by the
door for the announcer to announce the great Ben Hur chariot race, I got
into the chariot behind pa, and told him he must win the race, or the
people of Scranton would mob him. For they knew these races were usually
fixed beforehand, but since he was to drive one of the teams, all his
friends were betting on him, and if he pulled the team and let that
livery stable lady win the race, they would accuse him of giving free
tickets to get them in the show and skin them out of their money.

Pa said to m