ned the door of the cage and he went out like a rocket, and rolled
over a few times in the sawdust, and then jumped on the platform with
the freaks, run over the fat woman, who was laying back in a Morris
chair, and left one of the sheets of fly paper on her low neck, and it
stuck like a porous plaster. She yelled that she had been stabbed, and
pa came along just as the bob cat jumped off the platform, and struck pa
on the back, and the cat spit at pa, and pa fell over among the sacred
cattle and rolled under a cow and got on his knees, when the animals all
began to roar, and pa crawled behind a bale of hay, and a zebra stepped
on pa's face, and pa yelled "Hey, Rube," which is a grand hailing sign
of distress when circus men want to fight, and about a hundred of the
canvasmen came running with tent stakes to hit people with.

[Illustration: The Bob Cat Struck Pa on the Back.]

Pa crawled out from the bale of hay, which he had pulled over him, and
the hay stuck to the fly paper on pa, and a camel began to eat the hay,
and he chewed pa's shirt until the hands pulled pa away.

The bob cat escaped into the main tent, just as the Japanese jugglers
were juggling in No. 1 ring, and the elephants were standing on their
heads in No. 2 ring, and the flying trapeze artists were jumping from
one trapeze to another, and the bob cat rushed through the Japanese, and
amongst the elephants, with the fly paper all over him, and the audience
fairly yelled, 'cause they thought it was a clown dressed up to do some
stunt, but the Japanese left the ring in a panic, while the elephants
got down off their heads and stood on their hind feet and cried like
children.

The audience saw that something had happened that was serious and they
all rose to their feet and were going off into a panic when pa and a few
brave men came and drove the bob cat up a centerpole, away up above the
torches, and made speeches to the audience, and quieted them down, and
the performance went on. But pa was a sight, and the head circus man
told pa he would have to dress better, or forever after hold his peace,
and pa said if any man could be more patient than he was, with a bob cat
on his neck, a sacred cow walking on him, and a camel trying to eat his
whiskers and shirt, they better hire that man.

But it was all fixed up and everybody apologized to everybody, and the
bob cat went on up the center pole and out on top of the canvas and
escaped into Ohio, where it wi