“Teddy, you and I are a pair of lucky boys. Do you know it?” asked Phil.  
Each, with his bag of belongings¹, was on his way to the circus lot, the boys having bid good-bye to their friends in the village.
 
The people with whom Teddy lived had given a reluctant consent to his going with the circus, after he had explained that Phil Forrest had gotten him the place and that Phil himself was going to join the show. The lad told them he was going to make a lot of money and that someday he would pay them for all they had done for him. And he kept his word faithfully.
 
“Maybe. I reckon Barnum & Bailey will be wanting us first thing we know,” answered Teddy.
 
“We shall be lucky if we hold on to the job we have already. Did Mr. Sparling say what he would pay you?”
 
“No, he didn’t think of that—at least I didn’t. Did he tell you how much you were going to get?”
 
Phil nodded.
 
“How much?”
 
“I don’t think I had better say,” answered the lad doubtfully. “If you ask him and he tells you, of course that will be all right. I shall be glad to do so then. It isn’t that I don’t want you to know, you understand, but it might be better business, just now, to say nothing about it,” added Phil, with a wisdom far beyond his years.
 
“Dark secret, eh?” jeered² Teddy Tucker.
 
“No; there’s no secret about it. It is just plain business, that’s all.”
 
“Business! Huh! Who ever heard of a circus being business?”
 
“You’ll find business enough when you get in, Teddy Tucker.”
 
“Don’t believe it. It’s just good fun and that’s all.”
 
They had reached the circus lot by this time and were now making their way to Mr. Sparling’s tent.
 
“We have come to report, sir,” announced Phil, entering the tent with Teddy close behind him. “We are ready for work.”
 
There was a proud ring in Phil Forrest’s voice as he made the announcement.
 
“Very well, boys. Hand your baggage over to the man at the baggage wagon³. If there is anything in either of your grips that you will want during the night you had better get it out, for you will be unable to get into the wagon after the show is on the road. That’s one of the early wagons⁴ to move, too.”
 
“I guess there is nothing except our tooth brushes and combs that we shall need. We have those in our pockets.”
 
“Better take a couple of towels along as well.”
 
“Yes, sir; thank you.”
 
“The cook tent is open. Go over and have your suppers now. Wait a moment, I’ll go with you. They might not let you in. You see, they don’t know you there yet.”
 
Mr. Sparling, after closing and locking his trunk, escorted the lads to the cook tent, where he introduced both to the manager of that department.
 
“Give them seats at the performers’ table for tonight,” he directed. “They will be with the show from now on. Mr. Forrest here will remain at that table, but the other, the Tucker boy, I shall probably turn over to you for a coffee boy.”
 
The manager nodded good naturedly, taking quick mental measure of the two lads.
 
The boys were directed to their seats, which they took, almost as if in a dream. It was a new and unfamiliar⁵ experience to them. The odor of the food, the sweet scents⁶ from the green grass underneath⁷ their feet, all so familiar to the showman, gave Phil and Teddy appetites that even a canvasman might have envied.
 
The performers glanced at them curiously⁸, some of the former nodding to Phil, having recognized in him the boy who had ridden the elephant into the arena⁹ in the grand entry.
 
“Not so much after all, are they?” grunted¹⁰ Teddy.
 
“They are all human beings like ourselves, I guess,” replied Phil.
 
Stripped of their gaudy¹¹ costumes and paint, the performers looked just like other normal beings. But instead of talking about the show and their work, they were discussing the news of the day, and it seemed to the two lads to be more like a large family at supper than a crowd of circus performers.
 
Rodney Palmer nodded good naturedly to them from further up the long table, but they had no more than time to nod back when a waiter approached to take their orders. Teddy ordered pretty much everything on the bill, while Phil was more modest in his demands.
 
“Don’t eat everything they have,” he warned laughingly.
 
“Plenty more where this came from. That’s one good thing about a show.”
 
“What’s that?”
 
“If the food gives out they can eat the animals.”
 
“Better look out that the animals don’t make a meal of you.”
 
“Joining out?” asked the man sitting next to Phil.
 
“Yes, sir.”
 
“Ring act?”
 
“I don’t know yet what I am to do. Mr. Sparling is giving me a chance to find out what I am good for, if anything,” smiled Phil.
 
“Boss is all right,” nodded the circus man. “That was a good stunt¹² you did this afternoon. Why don’t you work that up?”
 
“I—I’ll think about it.” Phil did not know exactly what was meant by the expression, but it set him to thinking, and out of the suggestion he was destined¹³ to “work up” something that was really worthwhile, and that was to give him his first real start in the circus world.
 
“What’s that funny-looking fellow over there doing?” interrupted Teddy.
 
“That man down near the end of the table?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“That’s Billy Thorpe, the Armless Wonder,” the performer informed him.
 
“And he hasn’t any hands?” wondered the boy.
 
“Naturally not, not having any arms. He uses his feet for hands.”
 
“What’s he doing now?”
 
“Eating with his feet. He can use them almost as handily as you can your hands. You should see Billy sew, and write and do other things. Why, they say he writes the best foot of anybody in the show.”
 
“Doesn’t he ever get cold feet?” questioned Teddy humorously.
 
“Circus people are not afflicted¹⁴ with that ailment¹⁵. Doesn’t go well with their business.”
 
“May I ask what you do?” inquired Phil.
 
“I am the catcher in the principal trapeze act. You may have seen me today. I think you were in the big top then.”
 
“Oh, yes, I saw you this afternoon.”
 
“How many people are with the show?” asked Teddy.
 
“At a rough guess, I should say a hundred and fifty including canvasmen and other labor¹⁶ help. It’s a pretty big organization for a road show, the biggest in the country; but it’s small, so small it would be lost if one of the big railroad shows was around.”
 
“Is that another armless or footless wonder next to Billy Thorpe?” asked Teddy.
 
“It’s a freak, yes, but with hands and feet. That’s the living skeleton, but if he keeps on eating the way he’s been doing lately the boss will have to change the bills and bill him as the fattest man on earth.”
 
“Huh!” grunted Teddy. “He could crawl through a rat hole in a barn door now. He’s thin enough to cut cheese with.”
 
Phil gave his companion a vigorous nudge under the table.
 
“You’ll get into trouble if you are so free in expressing your opinions,” he whispered. “Don’t forget the advice Mr. Sparling gave you.”
 
“Apple or custard pie?” broke in the voice of the waiter.
 
“Custard,” answered Phil.
 
“Both for mine,” added Teddy.
 
He got what he had ordered and without the least question, for the Sparling show believed that the best way to make its people contented¹⁷ was to feed them.
 
Mr. Sp............