and make like I was pushing it away, "take back your proffered gold. I
but did my duty." And then wouldn't forget all about it. And one day,
after I'd forgotten all about, it, the man would die, and will me a
million dollars, or a thousand, I don't know. Enough to make me rich.

And say! Wouldn't the animals get excited when they saw the show was
afire? They'd just roar and roar, and upset the cages, and maybe they'd
get loose. O-o-o-Oh! How about that? If there was a lion come at me I'd
climb a tree. What would you do? Ah, your pa's shot-gun nothing! Why,
you crazy, that would only infuriate him the more. What you want to do
is to take an express rifle, like Doo Challoo did, and aim right for his
heart. An express rifle is what you send off and get, and they ship it
to you by express.

So you see what a fellow misses by having to go to the show in the
afternoon, like the girls and the a-b-abs. The boys from across the
tracks get to go at night. They have all the fun. When they go they
don't have to poke along, and poke along, and keep hold of hands so as
not to get lost.... Aw, hurry up, can't you? Don't you hear the band
playing? It'll be all over before we get there.

But finally the lots are reached, and there are the tents, with all
kinds of flags snapping from the centerpoles and the guy-ropes. And
there are the sideshows. Alas! You never thought of the sideshows when
you asked if you could go. And now it's too late. It must be fine in the
side-shows. I never got to go to one. I didn't have the money. But if
the big, painted banners, bulging in and out, as the wind plays with
them, are anything to go by, it must be something grand to see the Fat
Lady, and the Circassian Beauty, whose frizzled head will just about fit
a bushel basket, and the Armless Wonder. They say he can take a pair of
scissors with his toes and cut your picture out of paper just elegant.

Oh, and something else you miss by going in the afternoon. At night you
can sneak around at the back, and when nobody is looking you can just
lift up the canvas and go right in for nothing.... Why, what's wrong
about that? Ah, you're too particular.... And if the canvasman catches
you, you can commence to cry and say you had only forty cents, and
wanted to see the circus so bad, and he'll take it and let you in,
and you can have ten cents, don't you see, to spend for lemonade,
red lemonade, you understand; and peanuts, the littlest bags, and the
"on-riest"