like a Teddy bear?"

"That's the one the girls are going to have for their very own. Uncle
Rufus has been building a stall in the far shed for it--next to Billy
Bumps," Neale assured him.

"And it _is_ chocolate and cream and _pink_!" exclaimed Sammy. He turned
suddenly to Agnes. "Oh, I say, Aggie!" he shouted. "You _did_ know all
about what a calico pony was like, didn't you?"

Agnes herself was delighted with the pretty creature. Of course, he was
awfully round and fat; but he appeared so funny and cute when he looked
out at the audience from under his braided bang, that Scalawag quite
endeared himself to all their hearts.

He was something of a clown in the troupe of ponies. He always started
last when an order was given and when he had anything to do by himself
he appeared "to really hate" to do it. Mr. Sorber seemed to get very
angry, and he lashed at the pony quite furiously and shouted at him, so
that the little girls squealed.

But the whiplash only wound about Scalawag's neck and did not hurt him,
while he put his head around and looked at the ringmaster when he
shouted, as though to ask Uncle Bill Sorber: "What's your hurry?"

"He's almost the oldest live thing in the show," chuckled Neale to Luke.
"I can remember him when I was a little fellow and was first taken into
the ring as the 'Infantile Wonder of the Ages'. I rode Scalawag. He was
so fat then that I couldn't have rolled off his back very easily.

"Nothing older with the show, I guess, except Monolith, the moth-eaten
old elephant, and the big tortoise in the sideshow. They say the
elephant's over a hundred, and some think the tortoise is two hundred
years old. So they go Scalawag a little better in age."

At the end of the pony act Mr. Sorber made Scalawag do something that
thrilled Dot so that she whispered to Agnes she thought she "_should_
faint!" The ringmaster led the old pony right over in front of the
private box, and while all the people looked on, he presented Scalawag
to Dot and her absent sister, whom Mr. Sorber spoke of as "T'ressa."

"Ladies and gentlemen, and all friends," began the ringmaster. "Twomley
and Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie never does things by
halves. Even when we find ourselves obliged to get rid of one of our
faithful pufformers we make provision for that pufformer's happy old
age.

"Scalawag has always been a trial; but we have borne with him. We have
stood his tricks and his laziness for these many