sed to be in the show that was in the Opera House here last
week?" asked Harry Bentley.

"Yes," answered the boy, as he put on his coat. "I was with the show."

"Why aren't you with it now?" asked Bunny.

"And where's your sister--the one that sang?" added Sue.

The boy's face turned red, and he seemed to be confused.

"Well, we--er--I--that is we left the show," he said. "Maybe I ought to
say that the show left us. It 'busted up,' as we say. There wasn't
enough money to pay the actors, and so we all had to quit."

"That's too bad," said Jed Winkler. "It was a pretty good show, too. But
say, my boy, I feel that I owe you something for having gotten my monkey
down out of the tree. If you haven't been paid by the show people,
perhaps--maybe----"

"Oh, no, thank you! I don't take pay for doing things like climbing
trees after pet monkeys," was the answer. The boy started to laugh, but
he did not get very far with it. "You don't owe me anything. And now I
must go and get my sister," he added.

"Where did you leave her?" asked Mrs. Newton, one of the ladies who had
been in the store when the monkey began "cutting up."

"I left her sitting on a bench in the little park down near the river
front," answered the boy.

"That's a cold place!" exclaimed Mrs. Newton. "Why don't you take her
where it's warm?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know where to take her," said the
boy. "We just had money enough left to pay our trolley fare from a place
called Wayville, where we played last night, to this town. We thought
we'd come back here."

"To give another show?" asked the hardware man.

"No, I guess our show is gone for good," was the boy's answer. "But I
sort of liked this place, and so did my sister. I thought I might get
work here, at least until I could make money enough to go back to New
York."

"Got any folks in New York?" asked Mr. Winkler, as he stroked the head
of his pet monkey.

"Well, no, not exactly folks," replied the show boy, as he brushed some
bits of bark from his trousers. "But it's easier to get a place with a
show if you're in New York. They all start out from there."

"That boy looks to me as though the best place for him, right now, would
be at a table with a good meal on it," said Mrs. Newton. "He looks
hungry and cold."

"He does that," agreed Mrs. Brown, who had followed Bunny and Sue to see
that they did not get into mischief. "I'm going to invite him to our
house." She stepped up