strenuous efforts, barely succeeded in alighting
on the seat again, "it is pretty hard work; an' my name's Toby Tyler."

Toby heard a queer sound that seemed to come from the man's throat, and
for a few moments he feared that his companion was choking. But he soon
understood that this was simply an attempt to laugh, and he at once
decided that it was a very poor style of laughing.

"So you object to being called sonny, do you?"

"Well, I'd rather be called Toby, for, you see, that's my name."

"All right, my boy; we'll call you Toby. I suppose you thought it was a
mighty fine thing to run away an' jine a circus, didn't you?"

Toby started in affright, looked around cautiously, and then tried to
peer down through the small square aperture, guarded by iron rods, that
opened into the cage just back of the seat they were sitting on. Then
he turned slowly around to the driver, and asked, in a voice sunk to a
whisper: "How did you know that I was runnin' away? Did he tell you?"
and Toby motioned with his thumb as if he were pointing out someone
behind him.

It was the driver's turn now to look around in search of the "he"
referred to by Toby.

"Who do you mean?" asked the man, impatiently.

"Why, the old feller; the one in the cart there. I think he knew I was
runnin' away, though he didn't say anything about it; but he looked just
as if he did."

The driver looked at Toby in perfect amazement for a moment, and
then, as if suddenly understanding the boy, relapsed into one of those
convulsive efforts that caused the blood to rush up into his face and
gave him every appearance of having a fit.

"You must mean one of the monkeys," said the driver, after he had
recovered his breath, which had been almost shaken out of his body by
the silent laughter. "So you thought a monkey had told me what any fool
could have seen if he had watched you for five minutes."

"Well," said Toby, slowly, as if he feared he might provoke one of those
terrible laughing spells again, "I saw him tonight, an' he looked as if
he knew what I was doin'; so I up an' told him, an' I didn't know but
he'd told you, though he didn't look to me like a feller that would be
mean."

There was another internal shaking on the part of the driver, which Toby
did not fear so much, since he was getting accustomed to it, and then
the man said, "Well, you are the queerest little cove I ever saw."

"I s'pose I am," was the reply, accompanied by a long drawn si