ing pulled with a jerk up
the opposite bank. How did you get across?"

"Oh, easily! I just jumped across from one pier of the bridge to
the other," said Billy. "I met a friend of mine and we went off
and had a fine time. How I wish you could get out of that cage,
so you could go with us sometime!"

"You don't wish it more than I do, and it always makes me weep,
when we are driven along the sweet smelling roads, to think that
I can't get out and must be shut in here for life."

"It really is a shame, for you are too pretty to be shut in a
cage. Are you sure you can't break some of those bars some night
and get out?"

"I am sure," said the llama, "for I have tried time and again."

"Well, Billy Whiskers, you are the 'consarnedest' goat I ever
knew, and how in the 'dickens' you managed to break that chain is
more than I can tell," Billy and Miss Llama heard someone say
behind them and looking round they saw the animal keeper.

"So, so; you simply pulled up the stake you were tied to when you
found you could not chew your chain in two, did you? Well, come
along with me; you have been idle long enough, and we are going
to teach you some new tricks."

When Billy heard this his heart sank for he disliked the
ring-master and was afraid they would make him stand on his
hind-legs and walk. Had he only known it, that was the easiest
thing he would have to do. He was led to the performing ring and
there stood the hated ring-master facing a line of animals
standing in a straight line reaching from one side of the ring to
the other. In the middle stood the elephant, with the summer
house, as Billy called it, on his back; next him stood a camel;
next the camel a giraffe; next the giraffe a horse; next the
horse, a zebra, and last a little Shetland pony. On the other
side of the elephant were more animals standing in the same
order.

"What in the world can they want of me," thought Billy, but he
soon found out for they dressed him up as a clown in a white
suit with red spots on it and tied a mask on his face and a
pointed clown's cap on his head. Then they led him to where the
pony stood and made him walk up a step ladder, onto a little
platform, strapped to the pony's back. From this he was made to
walk up another step onto a similar platform on the zebra's back;
here he was made to stop and make a bow and so on until he had
reached the little summer house on the elephant's back. This he
was made to enter and sit upright