and most wonderful astrologer now
living. He will read to you, from a mystic book, the fate of the
world and whether it is to be destroyed by fire or water."

[Illustration]

When he had finished speaking, four men drew a platform in, on
which Billy was seated in his chair at the table. But the
strangest part of it all was, that when everything was still and
the crowd were all watching him, he commenced to read and turn
the pages of the book, and he spoke so plainly that everyone
could understand and hear. This surely was wonderful, and the
children could not make up their minds whether it was a man with
goat's horns, for his long horns stuck out through two holes on
either side of his cap, or a goat with a man's voice; and when
the Ring Master told the children that the professor had just
dropped from the sign of the Zodiac called Capricorn, which is
represented in all the almanacs by a goat, they thought he must
be telling the truth. He did not tell them that hidden under the
platform was a man that did the talking, and when the leaves of
the book turned, that he was pulling a string which made them
turn over, but everyone thought the goat was doing it himself.

After the performance was over, all the children as they passed
fed Billy peanuts, candy, pop-corn and apples as he stood by the
elephant.

Billy had behaved like a lamb for days and gone through all his
performances without a hitch,--in fact he had become the pet of
the circus, and allowed to roam about at will and was never tied
not even at night. So this night after all had settled down and
gone to bed, Billy, feeling wakeful, thought he would move around
a little and take a peep into the other tents. First he stuck his
nose into a little tent where they sold pop-corn, peanuts,
lemonade etc., during the performances.

"Now is my chance," thought Billy, "to eat all the pop-corn I
want, for I never have gotten enough to satisfy me at any one
time, but how can I get it out of that glass case. It looks so
easy to get at and smells so good, I must have some, even if I
have to break the glass to get at it."

He stood licking the glass for a little while; then his greed
getting the better of him, he backed off and gave the glass a
quick hard knock with his horns. It broke and flew in all
directions and let the pop-corn roll out in a perfect stream.
Billy stopped to listen a minute to see if the noise of the
breaking glass had brought anyone to see what w