gh. "I
don't seem to amount to so much as the other fellers do, an' I guess
it's because I'm always hungry; you see, I eat awful, Uncle Dan'l says."

The only reply which the driver made to this plaintive confession was to
put his hand down into the deepest recesses of one of his deep pockets
and to draw therefrom a huge doughnut, which he handed to his companion.

Toby was so much at his ease by this time that the appetite which had
failed him at supper had now returned in full force, and he devoured the
doughnut in a most ravenous manner.

"You're too small to eat so fast," said the man, in a warning tone, as
the last morsel of the greasy sweetness disappeared, and he fished up
another for the boy. "Some time you'll get hold of one of the India
rubber doughnuts that they feed to circus people, an' choke yourself to
death."

Toby shook his head, and devoured this second cake as quickly as he had
the first, craning his neck, and uttering a funny little squeak as the
last bit went down, just as a chicken does when he gets too large a
mouthful of dough.

"I'll never choke," he said, confidently. "I'm used to it; and Uncle
Dan'l says I could eat a pair of boots an' never wink at 'em; but I
don't just believe that."

As the driver made no reply to this remark Toby watched with no little
interest all that was passing on around him. Each of the wagons had a
lantern fastened to the hind axle, and these lights could be seen far
ahead on the road, as if a party of fireflies had started in single file
on an excursion. The trees by the side of the road stood out weird and
ghostly looking in the darkness, and the rumble of the carts ahead
and behind formed a musical accompaniment to the picture that sounded
strangely doleful.

Mile after mile was passed over in perfect silence, save now and then
when the driver would whistle a few bars of some very dismal tune that
would fairly make Toby shiver with its mournfulness. Eighteen miles was
the distance from Guilford to the town where the next performance of the
circus was to be given, and as Toby thought of the ride before them it
seemed as if the time would be almost interminable. He curled himself up
on one corner of the seat, and tried very hard to go to sleep; but just
as his eyes began to grow heavy the wagon would jolt over some rock or
sink deep in some rut, till Toby, the breath very nearly shaken out
of his body, and his neck almost dislocated, would sit bolt upright,