Uncle Toby's scaly pet on the board, down the alligator slid.

Trouble and Janet were enjoying themselves in this fashion, and Janet was
wondering what Teddy was doing, when that young member of the Curlytop
family stuck his head in through the open barn door and called:

"Come on out and see Snuff!"

"Oh, has he a bad fit?" asked Janet.

"He hasn't got a fit at all!" answered Ted. "He's doing one of the best
tricks you ever saw, and it will be dandy in our circus! Come and look at
him!"

"Oh, I'm glad he hasn't a fit!" cried Janet. "Come on, Trouble!"

But now there was more trouble with Trouble, for he wanted to stay and
play with Slider.

"Me see Slider slide more!" demanded the little fellow. And it was as
hard for Janet to get him to come out of the barn now, as it had been to
make him stay in before.

"Oh, come on and see Snuff do his funny trick!" she begged, and finally
Trouble came away from the alligator.

"And it sure is a funny trick!" laughed Ted, who had waited for his
little brother and Janet to come out. "Just you see!"

When the two Curlytops and Trouble hurried around the corner of the barn,
Teddy pointed to Snuff, the new, big cat that had been brought from Uncle
Toby's house.

Snuff was on top of a large leather ball, and it was rolling around the
yard, with him on top of it, just as a clown in the circus stands upright
on a large, painted ball, and rolls himself around the ring. This ball
was a football that Teddy had owned for some time. The outside was
leather, and inside was a rubber bladder that could be blown up. It was a
round ball, of the kind used in "Association" games, and not for "Rugby,"
which most of the football elevens play in this country. The "Rugby" ball
is shaped like a watermelon, but the other is more like a muskmelon, and
it was on this latter kind of a ball that Snuff was rolling around the
yard, just like a circus clown.

"Was this what Trouble meant when he said Snuff was rolling?" asked
Janet.

"Yes," answered Teddy. "I'm glad Uncle Toby's cat didn't have a fit. Now
we can make him do this trick in our animal circus."

"Oh, it's a lovely trick," declared Janet. "I wonder how he learned it?"

"Maybe Uncle Toby or the lady who owned him first taught Snuff to roll on
top of a football," Ted answered, while the yellowish brown cat kept on
stepping lightly this way and that, making the ball turn over and over.
"I guess Trouble left the ball out here in the yar