ay when I
want the snakes to come to me, and the boa stopped squeezing the
goat and came to me."

"Goat, did you say? You mean burglar."

"No, I mean goat, or _burglar_ if you would rather call him so,
for your thief was nothing more or less than Billy Whiskers."

"You mean, horrid man to fool us so!" they all said.

And the snake charmer got up and hurried out of the tent for he
saw blood in the eye of the champion boxer and he thought he had
better get out before the man took hold of him.

Saturday was to be the last day of the circus in Smithville and
immediately after the evening performance they were to break camp
and move in the night, and be on the road all day Sunday
traveling to the next town, where they were booked to give a
performance on Monday morning.

Now all this meant quick work and rapid travel, as they could not
go by train, there being no railroad to this town, so they had to
have their circus horses and wagons move them.

When Billy heard them talking about moving, he thought it would
be great fun and looked forward to it with pleasure. But he
little knew what was before him.

During the morning performance Billy behaved all right, but in the
afternoon he was so excited and anxious to be off that he behaved
very badly. He ran around the ring so fast that when the monkey
jumped through the paper hoops expecting to land on Billy's back,
he was beyond him and the monkey landed on the ground and had to
run to catch up. This made the ring-master angry and he hit Billy
a sharp cut with his whip, but instead of making him behave better
he got worse and worse. He would stand still and shake himself
until he nearly made the monkey's bones crack; and when the
ring-master hit him, he stood on his hind legs and the monkey had
to cling to his horns to keep from falling off. When Billy found
he could not throw the monkey, he ran for the pole in the center
of the ring that supported the tent, and tried to butt him off but
the monkey was too quick for him and dodged every time. At last
Billy tried rolling with him, but this the ring-master could not
allow as it would ruin the saddle strapped to his back. He gave
him a few good cuts with the whip that stung like everything and
this turned Billy's wrath from the monkey to him, and like a shot
he was up and after the ring-master. He planted his horns in the
middle of the ring-master's back and ran him to the edge of the
ring where he gave him a butt that s