Part 10 (2/2)
”What do I intend to do with it?”
”Yes. Is it your purpose to present it to this beautiful little city, to be placed among its other treasures in the city hall?”
”Well, I guess not!”
”What, then?”
”I'm going to eat it. That's what I'm going to do with it,”
answered Teddy in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the big top.
The people shouted.
”Give me that egg!” demanded the Circus Boy, grabbing the big white ball and marching off toward the paddock with it, to the accompaniment of the laughter and applause of the audience.
”Now that we have seen this remarkable Easter achievement, the performance will proceed,” announced the ringmaster, blowing his whistle and waving his hand.
The band struck up; the performers, grinning broadly, took up their work where they had left off upon the entrance of Teddy Tucker with the giant egg.
The incident had served to put both performers and audience in high good humor. Mr. Sparling was not present to witness it.
He was busy down by the docks, attending to the loading of such of the show's equipment as was ready to be packed away for s.h.i.+pment on the Sparling fleet.
Perhaps it was just as well for Teddy, that the owner of the show was not present, as he might have objected to the Circus Boy's interruption of the performance.
Teddy was irrepressible. He stood in awe of no one except the Lady Snake Charmer, and did pretty much as he pleased all the time. Yet, beneath the surface, there was the making of a manly man, a resolute, st.u.r.dy character of whom great things might be expected in the not far distant future.
As the performance proceeded an ominous rumbling was suddenly heard.
”I think it is going to storm,” Phil confided to his working mate on the flying trapeze.
”Sounds that way. Is that thunder I hear?”
”Yes.”
”Guess it won't amount to much. Just a spring shower. You will find a lot of them along the river for the next month or so.”
”I have always heard that rivers were wet,” replied Phil humorously, swinging off into s.p.a.ce, landing surely and gracefully in the arms of the catcher in the trapeze act.
”I think we had better cut the act short.”
”Oh, no, let's go on with it,” answered Phil. ”I am not afraid if you are not.”
”Afraid nothing. I remember still what a narrow escape we had last season just before that blow-down, when Wallace, the big lion, made his escape. That was a lively time, wasn't it?”
”Rather,” agreed Phil.
The ringmaster motioned to them to bring their act to a close, and the band leader, catching the significance of the movement, urged his musicians to play louder. The crash of cymbals and the boom of the ba.s.s drum and the big horns almost drowned out the rumbling of the thunder.
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