iving skeleton and blew him over like a cyclone,
and by that time pa was blowing off wind in a dozen places that I had
punctured, and he was scared for fear there wouldn't be anything left of
him, and the giant saw the fat woman slowly fading away, and the coward
had heart failure and lay down on the platform. Somebody shouted that
the fat woman was all melting away, and a fellow who was watering a
camel out of a bucket came to the rescue and threw the bucket of dirty
water all over pa, and then I thought I better go away into the tent and
see the fight, but pa was taken to the dressing room and rescued from
the shrinking rubber balloons that were busted, and he said he would
hunt the man that punctured his tire to his dying day, but he didn't
know it was me.

[Illustration: I Punctured Pa's Tires.]

Gee, it looks to me as though pa has been engaged to act as the easy
mark in this show. Say, they got pa to practice on roaring like a lion,
so he could stand behind the cage when the lion has a sore throat and
roar, and scare folks, and pa has been going around behind the cages,
every evening, when the menagerie is closed, and the crowd in the main
tent, making noises that have made the animals look at each other as
much as to say, "Well, what do you think of that?" The rhinoceros was so
disgusted at Paducah that he reached out his nose and took pa on his
horn and held him up to the scorn of the other animals until pa's pants
gave way and he was a sight, and he was so scared that he got out of the
tent and made a run for our train, chased by the police, who thought he
was a burglar that had been eat by a house dog.

[Illustration: Chased by Police.]

The worst thing we have had on pa was at Louisville, where we stayed
over Sunday. Another fellow and I got a system on slot machines, and one
day we beat the machines out of a shotbag full of nickels, and when we
showed up at the tent all the fellows wanted to know how we did it, and
pa said it was gambling, and we ought not to do it, but he also wanted
to know how we managed to win, and when we told pa about it pa said it
was no sin to beat a slot machine, 'cause it was an inanimate thing,
just a machine, and anybody who could beat a nickel in the slot machine
at his own game was equal to a Rockefeller.

So after everybody had got excited about our nickels I told them how to
beat the machine. I told them I didn't get excited and go rushing in
where angels fear to tread,