eamed and banged
the door?"

"No," said the boy; "if they heard us trying to give the alarm, they
would be very angry, and perhaps they wouldn't give us anything to eat
for days--not until we were nearly dead."

"I think we had better go to sleep," said Dumpty, yawning, and began
saying her prayers.

In a few minutes both children were lying fast asleep on the floor of
the caravan.

* * * * *

"My eye! jest look 'ere, Bill!"

"Well, I'm blowed!" said Bill, gaping open-mouthed at the sight of the
two children asleep in the caravan.

"'Ow in the world did they get 'ere?" continued the woman who had first
found them. "Wike up! wike hup!" she cried, giving them each a violent
shaking.

Humpty began to open his eyes. He stared in astonishment at the people
round him.

"Are you the circus people?" he asked.

"Yes, and who are you, we're wanting to know, and 'ow did you come
'ere?"

By this time Dumpty was awake. On seeing the strange faces, she
immediately began to cry.

"Don't 'e cry, dear," said the woman; "there's no call to be afraid."

But Dumpty still cried.

"Why did you lock us in?" asked Humpty defiantly.

"I believe they think as 'ow we locked 'em in for the purpose," laughed
the woman, and then she explained to them what had happened, how they
always kept this caravan locked, for they did not use it for sleeping or
living in, but filled it with baskets and tins, which they sold as they
travelled through the villages. She told the twins, too, that three
policemen were out searching for them everywhere, and had come to make
inquiries of her husband, and of the man who sold the tickets, but they
could tell them nothing. And in their turn the twins had to explain how
it was that they had found their way into the caravan.

[Sidenote: An Early Breakfast]

It was just three o'clock now, and the men were all at work, for by four
o'clock they must be on the way to the next town, where they were
"billed" to give a performance that very afternoon.

"And now," said the woman, "you must 'ave a bite of breakfast, and then
Bill shall tike you 'ome. What'll your ma and pa say when they see you?
they'll be mighty pleased, I guess."

The twins had never been up so early in the morning before. They felt
ill and stiff all over from sleeping on the hard floor, and they were
very hungry, and cold too, for the morning air seemed chill and biting.

The women had made a fire of sti