le out of the youngster."

Toby was about to make some reply; but Ben continued unfolding his
budget of news.

"Castle stayed with us till the season was over, an' then he went out
West. I don't know whether he got his hair cut trying to show the Injuns
how to ride, or not; but he never come back, an' nobody I ever saw has
heard anything about him."

"Are Mr. and Mrs. Treat with the show?"

"Yes, they're still here; he's a leetle thinner, I believe, an' she's
twenty pound heavier. She says she weighs fifty pounds more'n she did;
but I don't believe that, even if she did strike for five dollars more a
week this season on the strength of it, an' get it. They keep right on
cookin' up dinners, an' invitin' of folks in, an' the skeleton gets
choked about the same as when you was with the show. I don't know how it
is that a feller so thin as Treat is can eat so much."

"Uncle Dan'l says it's 'cause he works so hard to get full," said Toby,
quietly, "an' I shouldn't wonder if I grew as thin as the skeleton one
of these days, for I eat jest as awful much as I used to."

"Well, you look as if you got about all you needed, at any rate," said
Ben, as he mentally compared the plump boy at his side with the thin,
frightened-looking one who had run away from the circus with his monkey
on his shoulder and his bundle under his arm.

"Is Ella here?" asked Toby, after a pause, during which it seemed as if
he were thinking of much the same thing that Ben was.

"Yes, an' she keeps talkin' about what big cards you an' her would have
been if you had only stayed with the show. But I'm glad you had pluck
enough to run away, Toby, for a life like this hain't no fit one for
boys."

"And I was glad to get back to Uncle Dan'l," said Toby, with a great
deal of emphasis. "I wouldn't go away without he wanted me to, if I
could go with a circus seven times as large as this. Do you suppose
young Stubbs would act bad if I was to take him for a walk?"

"Who?" asked Ben, looking down at the crowd of boys with no slight show
of perplexity.

"Mr. Stubbs's brother," and Toby motioned to the door of the cage. "I'd
like to take him up in my arms, 'cause it would seem so much like it
used to before his brother died."

Ben was seized with one of the very worst laughing spasms Toby had ever
seen, and there was every danger that he would roll off the seat before
he could control himself; but he did recover after a time, and as the
purple hue slowly