"Where was that?" questioned a voice. "I never heard of your riding a greased pig around these parts."
"I guess that must have been before you were born," retorted Teddy witheringly.
"Say, Phil," persisted Walter, this time in a confidential tone.
"Yes?"
"Do you suppose you could get me a job in the circus?"
"I don"t know about that, Walt. What do you think you could do?"
"Well, I can do a cartwheel and--"
"Oh, fudge!" interrupted Teddy.
"That"s more than Tucker could do when he joined the show.
Do you know what he did, first of all?" said Phil.
"No; what did he do?" chorused the boys.
"He poured coffee in the cook tent for the thirsty roustabouts.
That"s the way he began his circus career."
"I didn"t do it more than a day or two," Tucker explained, rather lamely.
"But you did it!" jeered Walter.
"Then his next achievement was riding the educated mule. I guess you boys never saw him do that."
"Not until tonight."
"This is different. The other was a bucking mule, and Teddy made a hit from the first time he entered the ring on Jumbo. He hit pretty much everything in the show, including the owner himself."
Phil leaned back and laughed heartily at the memory of his companion"s exhibition at this, his first appearance in a circus ring as a performer.
"No, Walt, I wouldn"t advise you to join. Some people are cut out for the circus life. They never would succeed at anything else. Teddy and myself for instance. Besides, your people never would consent to it. You will be a lawyer, or something great, some of these days, while we shall be cutting up capers in the circus ring at so much per caper. It"s a wonderful life but you keep out of it," was Phil Forrest"s somewhat illogical advice.
"How far are you going this year?" asked one of the boys.
"I can"t say. I understand we are going south--to Dixie Land for the last half of the season. I think we are headed for Canada, just now, swinging around the circuit as it were. Isn"t it about time we were getting back to the train, Teddy?"
"No, I guess not. I haven"t eaten up all the cookies yet.
Please pa.s.s the cookies, you fellow up there at the head of the table."
"We shall have our little entertainment before you fellows go to your sleeper. We reckon Phil Forrest and Teddy Tucker ought to do some stunts for us. Isn"t that so?" asked President Billy.
"Yes," shouted the boys.
"What, after a meal like that? I couldn"t think of it,"
laughed Phil. "Never perform on a full stomach unless you want to take chances. It might do you up for good."
"Well, it won"t hurt Teddy to be funny. Do something funny, Teddy."
Teddy looked up soulfully as he munched a cookie.
"Costs money to see me act funny," he said.
"Go on; go on!" urged the boys. "You never showed us any of your tricks except what you did in the ring this evening."
"Do you know, it"s a funny thing, but I never can be funny unless there is a crop of new-mown sawdust under my feet,"
remarked Teddy.
"Nothing very funny about that!" growled a voice at the further end of the table.
Teddy fixed him with a reproving eye.
"Very well, but you"ll be sorry. I will now present to you the giddiest, gladdest, gayest, grandest, gyrating, glamorous and glittering galaxy--as the press agent says--that ever happened."
Teddy, who sat at the extreme end of the table, placed both hands carelessly on the table, then drew his body up by slow degrees, until a moment later as his body seemed to unfold, he was doing a hand stand right on the end of the supper table.
The boys shouted with delight and Teddy kicked his feet in the air.
"Go on! Don"t stop," urged the lads.
"You"ll be wishing I had stopped before I began," retorted the lad, starting to walk on his hands right down the center of the table.
There were dishes in the way, but this did not disturb Tucker in the least. He merely pushed them aside, some rolling off on the floor and breaking, others falling into the laps of the boys.
"Here, here, what are you doing?" called Phil.
"This is what I call the topsy-turvy walk."
Teddy paused when halfway down the table, to let his mouth down to the table, where he had espied another cookie. When he pulled himself up, the cookie was between his lips, and the boys roared at the ludicrous sight.
Then, the lad who was walking on his hands, continued right on.
He was nearing the foot of the table when something occurred that changed the current of their thoughts, sending the heart of every boy pounding in his throat.
Crash!
It seemed as if the roof had been suddenly hurled down upon their heads.
Teddy instantly fell off the table, tumbling into the laps of two of the boys, the three going down to the floor in a heap, finally rolling under the table. The other boys sprang to their feet in sudden alarm.
"It"s a band," cried Phil. "Don"t be afraid."
Then the circus band, that had been waiting in the hall just outside the dining place, marched in with horns blaring, drums beating, and took up their position at the far end of the room.
"It"s the circus band," cried the lads, now recovering from their fright. "How did they get here?"
By this time Teddy, his face red and resentful, was poking his head from beneath the table.