checkered vest, from one
pocket to the other, with a life-size gold elk hanging down the middle,
and ma almost had a convulsion.

Gee, but if pa wears that rig in the menagerie tent the animals will paw
and bellow like a drove of cattle that smell blood. Pa is going to wear
a sack coat with his outfit, so as to look tough, and he wouldn't hear
to ma when she tried to get him to wear a frock coat. He said a frock
coat was all right in society or among the crowned heads, but when you
have to mingle with lions and elephants one minute that would snatch the
tail off a coat and chew it and the next minute you are mixed up with a
bunch of freaks or a lot of bareback riders or trapeze performers, you
have got to compromise on a coat that will fit any climate, and not
cause invidious remarks, whatever that is.

I will have to stand up beside the giant once in a while to show the
difference in the size of men, and at other times I will have to stand
beside the midgets and look like a giant myself. We are all packed up,
and in two days we start for the winter quarters of the show, to pound
it into shape for the road. By ginger, I can't hardly wait to get there
and see pa boss things.

CHAPTER II.

The Bad Boy Visits the Circus in Winter Quarters--He Meets the
Circus Performers--Dad Rides a Horse and Gets Tossed in a
Blanket--The Bad Boy Goes "Kangarooing"--Pa's Clothes Cause
Excitement Among the Animals--A Monkey Steals His Watch.

April 15.--We are now at the winter quarters of the show, in a little
town, on a farm just outside, where the tent is put up and the animals
are being cared for in barns, and the performers are limbering up their
joints, wearing overcoats to turn flip-flaps, and everybody has a cold,
and looks blue, and all are anxious for warm weather.

Pa created a sensation when we arrived by his stunning clothes, his jet
black chin whiskers and his watch chain over his checkered vest, and
when the proprietors introduced pa to the performers and hands, as an
old stockholder in the show, who would act as assistant manager during
the season and pa smiled on them with a frown on his forehead, and said
he hoped his relations with them would be pleasant, one of the old
canvasmen remarked to a girl who rides two horses at once with the
horses strapped together, so they can't get too far apart and cause her
to break in two, said that old goat with the silk hat would last just
about four we