attempts at rebelling were treated with loud jeers, and by savage
threats of a horse-whipping. The latter menace was carried out before
the week was over, on the unhappy boy obstinately refusing to clean out
the animals' cages, to fetch and carry the food for birds and beasts,
and to perform a hundred other distasteful offices.

'I'll teach ye; I'll conduct your education, young sir!' shouted the
ring-master. 'And here's the lesson-book!' he sneered, flourishing a
cruel-looking whip.

Stunned and crushed, Alick had asked repeatedly to see Ned, and also
entreated to be permitted to leave the show at once. His requests
were, of course, harshly refused. In addition, he was sternly warned
that if he attempted to escape he would be horse-whipped again, and
next-door to death.

'They're a catch for us, them two!' the brutal ring-master remarked to
his wife, as he and she sat at their supper after the performance was
over one evening. 'That tallest youngster's a swell as has run away
from 'ome, judging from his looks and clothes. He's just what we've
bin wantin' for a long time back. The fust thing to do is to break
that 'igh speerit of his, and then we'll set to work to train him to
show off with the leopards. That would draw famous with the public.'

'Not with the leopards! Not with them beasts! They're the worst and
the fiercest in the show. 'Tis next-door to impossible to tame a
leopard. I won't 'ave it, I tell you, so there!' the woman broke in,
with a high-pitched voice.

'Well, well, we're not going to 'ave words about it!' The first
speaker yielded; for his wife, the widow of the former proprietor, was
the real owner of the circus. 'We needn't say no more about the
leopards--for a bit. But I'll tell you what. 'Ee can do tricks with
little Mike, the new pony, and the monkeys. We'll make up a sort of
little performance a-purpose for 'im and them. I must invent a little
somethink that would be taking.'

'I 'ope 'ee won't catch the fever, like the rest on 'em, that's all!'
muttered the mistress, shaking her head doubtfully.

That, however, was just what Alick Carnegy managed to do. After some
weeks' slaving and knocking about at the hands of the ring-master, such
as fairly stunned him, he fell sick. At once the poor, gaunt, dirty
lad, whom Northbourne would have refused to recognise as the smart
Alick Carnegy, always trig and trim, was hustled off to the squalid
room of an old Whitechapel cron