would come with his mice and rats, and a lot of money to bet that you
couldn't hold that flock of elephants with log chains when he opened his
bag of rats and mice.

Well, how it got into the papers I do not know, but the next morning
they all said an interesting experiment would be made the next afternoon
at the great and only circus, to determine once and for all whether
elephants were afraid of mice, and that a senator's son and a son of one
of the proprietors of the show would conduct the experiment by turning
loose a lot of mice and rats in the rings at precisely 3:30 p.m.

Well, you never saw such a crowd in a circus as we had that afternoon.
It seemed as though the whole population turned out, foreign ministers,
negroes, society people and clerks. That senator's son and the whole
family, and the neighbors, must have been up all night catching mice and
rats, and it took nine boys and three servants to carry the baskets and
traps and bags of mice and rats. I passed them all in and we lined up on
a front seat to wait for the elephant stunt, and when the thing was ripe
we were to empty the whole mess of vermin into the ring.

I felt as though something was wrong 'cause I saw the new moon over my
left shoulder the night before, and now I wish I had died before this
thing happened. When the Japanese jugglers went out of the ring I knew
that was the cue for the elephants to come in, and when the dressing
room curtain was pulled aside and old Bolivar came out at the head of
the herd, and they marched around the outside of the ring, clear around
the tent, my heart jumped up into my throat, and I felt sick.

The senator's son said: "When these rats and things begin to chase your
old elephants, you won't be able to see their tails for the dust they
will kick up."

Then I thought of the money pa had given me to bet, and I offered to bet
it all, and a negro produced funds and took all my bets like a
bookmaker.

Well, after doing a turn around the big ring, the trainer steered the
elephants into the middle ring, and the great audience leaned forward to
catch every trick the elephants did.

Us boys held on to the bags that the mice and things were in, waiting
for our cue. The elephants stood on their heads and hind feet, and fore
feet, laid down, fired pistols, and did everything just right, without
making a mistake. Finally the trainer formed the whole herd into a grand
pyramid, with old Bolivar in the center, each elep