afterwards, nasty,
unobliging things, because now they won't see the circus. I hope the
other animals will tell them about it."

While the turkeys were engaged in baffling the rest of us, Dicky had
found three sheep who seemed to wish to join the glad throng, so we let
them.

Then we shut the gate of the paddock, and left the dumb circus
performers to make friends with each other while we dressed.

Oswald and H. O. were to be clowns. It is quite easy with Albert's
uncle's pyjamas, and flour on your hair and face, and the red they do
the brick-floors with.

Alice had very short pink and white skirts, and roses in her hair and
round her dress. Her dress was the pink calico and white muslin stuff
off the dressing-table in the girls' room fastened with pins and tied
round the waist with a small bath towel. She was to be the Dauntless
Equestrienne, and to give her enhancing act of bare-backed daring,
riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we found was freshest and most
skittish. Dora was dressed for the _Haute Ecole_, which means a
riding-habit and a high hat. She took Dick's topper that he wears with
his Etons, and a skirt of Mrs. Pettigrew's. Daisy dressed the same as
Alice, taking the muslin from Mrs. Pettigrew's dressing-table without
saying anything beforehand. None of us would have advised this, and
indeed we were thinking of trying to put it back, when Denny and Noel,
who were wishing to look like highwaymen, with brown paper top-boots and
slouch hats and Turkish towel cloaks, suddenly stopped dressing and
gazed out of the window.

"Krikey!" said Dick; "come on, Oswald!" and he bounded like an antelope
from the room.

Oswald and the rest followed, casting a hasty glance through the window.
Noel had got brown paper boots too, and a Turkish towel cloak. H. O.
had been waiting for Dora to dress him up for the other clown. He had
only his shirt and knickerbockers and his braces on. He came down as he
was--as indeed we all did. And no wonder, for in the paddock, where the
circus was to be, a blood-thrilling thing had transpired. The dogs were
chasing the sheep. And we had now lived long enough in the country to
know the fell nature of our dogs' improper conduct.

We all rushed into the paddock, calling to Pincher, and Martha, and
Lady. Pincher came almost at once. He is a well-brought-up dog--Oswald
trained him. Martha did not seem to hear. She is awfully deaf, but she
did not matter so much, because the sheep