g-master and the clown manage to get the country-jake on to
the broad platform on the horse's back, and then the ring-master cracks
his whip, and the two supes who have been holding the horse's head let
go, and the horse begins cantering round the ring. The little fellows
are just sure the country-jake is going to fall off, he reels and
totters so; but the big boys tell them to keep watching out; and pretty
soon the country-jake begins to straighten up. He begins to unbutton his
long gray overcoat, and then he takes it off and throws it into the
ring, where one of the supes catches it. Then he sticks a short pipe
into his mouth, and pulls on an old wool hat, and flourishes a stick
that the supe throws to him, and you see that he is an Irishman just
come across the sea; and then off goes another coat, and he comes out a
British soldier in white duck trousers and red coat. That comes off, and
he is an American sailor, with his hands on his hips, dancing a
horn-pipe. Suddenly away flash wig and beard and false-face, the
pantaloons are stripped off with the same movement, the actor stoops for
the reins lying on the horse's neck, and James Rivers, the greatest
three-horse rider in the world, nimbly capers on the broad pad, and
kisses his hand to the shouting and cheering spectators as he dashes
from the ring past the braying and bellowing brass-band into the
dressing-room!

The big boys have known all along that he was not a real country-jake;
but when the trained mule begins, and shakes everybody off, just like
the horse, and another country-jake gets up, and offers to bet that he
can ride that mule, nobody can tell whether he is a real country-jake or
not. This is always the last thing in the performance, and the boys have
seen with heavy hearts many signs openly betokening the end which they
knew was at hand. The actors have come out of the dressing-room door,
some in their every-day clothes, and some with just overcoats on over
their circus-dresses, and they lounge about near the bandstand watching
the performance in the ring. Some of the people are already getting up
to go out, and stand for this last act, and will not mind the shouts of
"Down in front! Down there!" which the boys eagerly join in, to eke out
their bliss a little longer by keeping away even the appearance of
anything transitory in it. The country-jake comes stumbling awkwardly
into the ring, but he is perfectly sober, and he boldly leaps astride
the mule