ed and shouted so that the boy in buttons
had not been able to keep her out upon the grounds.

When Sonny Boy took her again into his arms and started to go back, just
as he had come away, he almost wished that Aunt Kate had borrowed some
other one of the Plummers!

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SONNY BOY BECOMES A SCHOLAR

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CHAPTER V

SONNY BOY BECOMES A SCHOLAR

Polly was so lively on the way back to the city that Sonny Boy didn't dare
to take her into a passenger-car. The smoking-car happened to be almost
empty, and the conductor said he would better go in there.

Polly didn't like the empty smoking-car. She wished to be where there were
plenty of people to admire her, and she showed her displeasure by making a
dreadful noise. She barked and miaowed and cackled and crowed, and
squealed and lowed and whinneyed and brayed and squawked and roared and
growled, until one would have thought the smoking-car was nothing less
than Noah's Ark. A crowd of people came rushing into the car, and among
them was a man who looked like a sailor, who insisted upon taking the
covering from Polly's cage and holding her up to the light.

"Belong to you?" he said. "Don't want to sell her, do you?"

Sonny Boy's heart gave a great leap. He was himself so very tired of
Polly's voice, and he had so dreaded to take her back to Aunt Kate, that
it did not seem to him possible that any one could want her.

"She's a handsome bird," continued the man, "and hasn't she got a voice!
She isn't exactly the bird for a home pet, but at a show she'd draw. And I
belong to a show."

The man seated himself beside Sonny Boy and spoke in a low tone. "'The
Wonder of the World'--that's the name of the show that I belong to," he
said.

That was the very circus that had been at Poppleton the summer before, the
one that Tom had been so much interested in!

"Oh, then, perhaps you know all about the Wild Man of Borneo!" cried Sonny
Boy eagerly. "Have you ever seen him _near to_?"

The sailor looked confused, and there was a queer twinkle in his eye.

"I am some acquainted with the Wild Man," he said slowly.

"Did he really come from Borneo? And is he truly wild?" asked Sonny Boy
with eager curiosity.

"He is just about as wild as they make them," said the man, wagging his
head solemnly. And Sonny Boy's heart thrilled with f