MR. PETER WHIFFIN, straining his neck in an effort to look squarely into Tom Clifton’s eyes, also waved his finger threateningly in the air.
“Things has came to a pretty pass when a lot of irresponsible kids can go chasin’ all around creation in a motor car. Do you know what you done last night?”
The familiar flush appeared once more on Tom Clifton’s face as many pairs of eyes were leveled in his direction.
“What do you mean?” he stammered.
“It’s a wonder it doesn’t mean a ten thousand dollar suit for damages!” thundered Mr. Whiffin, savagely. “An’ it’s only by good luck that you ain’t mixed up in the biggest kind of a rumpus. That car o’ yourn stampeded our elephants—that’s what it done!”
“I’m very sorry to hear it,” spoke up Bob Somers, quietly, “but you can hardly blame us. We had just as much right to the road as you.”
“No sass, now!” cried Whiffin.
Tom was trembling with indignation.
“Seems to me you’re handing some out yourself,” he managed to say.
“I’m good at it,” snapped Whiffin. “Anybody what deserves sass gits their full share from me.”
“By George, if I’d only known it was the Ramblers in that car,” cried Victor, recovering from his surprise, “maybe some mud balls wouldn’t have been flying!”
“I must say this has been a wonderful motor car trip,” remarked Charlie.
“Just supposin’ them elephants had run inter somethin’?” Mr. Whiffin’s querulous tones rose above all other sounds. “Just supposin’ a farmer’s wagon had been in the way——”
“Or a picnic party,” broke in Tom, satirically.
No doubt Mr. Whiffin would have made a very interesting retort but for the fact that his eyes happened to rest on the form of a stocky, freckle-faced boy. This lad, attracted by the sound of his voice, had come forward and was taking in the scene with much apparent interest.
The audacity of such a proceeding seemed to appal Mr. Peter Whiffin.
“Loafin’ ag’in, eh?” he snarled. “Expect to be supported in idleness, I reckon! You ain’t done scarcely nothin’ since I hired that new barker.”
“Oh, I ain’t, eh?” Joe Rodgers’ eyes flashed angrily. “Oh, no; I ain’t done nothin’ but work me arms an’ legs most off!”
“Light out!” commanded the manager.
“When I gits ready I will,” answered Joe, defiantly. “Hey, fellers, I heard all that. So you’re the ones what Jumbo, I—I mean Dave told me about? An’, say, he’s the bulliest feller in the whole world. Anybody what could do what he done last night ought ter have a medal.”
“Permit me to introduce into your charmed circle the esteemed and particular crony of Mr. David Brandon—Joseph Rodgers, Esquire, water-carrier by special appointment to Oily Spudger’s Great Show,” snickered Victor.
The boys greeted Joe politely.
“If the fat feller belongs to a bunch like this it’s most enough to make me fire him,” growled the manager. “Have you watered them elephants, Joe?”
“Sure I have.”
“And wiped off them cages?”
“Yep.”
“Well, you know what yer next job is. Git!”
“Don’t have to.”
Mr. Whiffin was both amazed and angry.
“It’s all the doin’s o’ that there new barker,” he declared, emphatically. “He’s been fillin’ yer head full o’ cranky notions. Ye’re gittin’ too big fer your place.”
“’Tain’t so!” Joe flung back, spitefully.
“I’ll look inter this here affair, an’ if that fat feller keeps meddlin’ inter other people’s business I’ll hand him somethin’ what he won’t never forgit.”
“A fine bit of gratitude for stopping the runaway elephants!” cried Tom.
“Mr. Whiffin is going to give you all free passes,” spoke up Victor, loudly. “Step right over to the box office and get ’em!”
The manager glared at the crowd.
“If that’s what ye’re after, pass straight along,” he snarled. “I wouldn’t want you in the show at fifty cents per. Like as not you’d stampede the whole menagerie!”
The furious blast of the ten thousand dollar band starting up made further conversation almost impossible. As though the music conveyed some signal to the brain of Mr. Whiffin and his protégé, they immediately started off, and, by the simple process of mingling with the crowd, were soon lost to sight.
“The automobile hasn’t bumped anything,” laughed Bob, “but a whole lot of things have bumped us.”
The boys, seeing that there would be no chance to interview the barker for some time, concluded to take the car to the nearest garage.
“I always knew that Dave could do a lot of things,” said Tom, as he climbed into the machine, “but who ever thought he could stand up before a crowd and talk like that?”
“And didn’t he look perfectly stunning in that red coat and pretty little cap?” remarked Charlie Blake, with a sly glance at each of the others. “Aren’t we the brainy chaps on this trip, though?”
“A hulking big thing like that ought to be out working on a farm,” roared Bob.
With a loud honk, honk, the motor car was off, and twenty minutes later the four were back at the circus.
They found the lot in the grip of a frenzy of sound. Dave was hammering on a gong, the ringing notes of which even overtopped the most strenuous efforts of the hard-working band; and this medley of sound was punctuated at intervals by the cries of venders, or the shrill whoops of children.
“It’s a dandy show, all right,” said Victor.
“If Whiffin had gotten me to do the barking instead of Dave——” began Tom. “Hey, what are you laughing about?” he demanded, suspiciously.
“Oh, nothing!” gurgled Victor. “Excuse me, but the thought of you chinning to a crowd somehow gave me a fit of the laughs.”
“Then get over it. I was going to say that there would have been a fine row if he’d tried any of his prattling on me.”
“My, oh my, isn’t that awful to think of?” snickered Victor.
Tom tossed his head scornfully, and was about to join in a rush for the ticket wagon when Bob stopped him.
“I want to get a chance to speak to Dave first,” he said. “Plenty of time yet, Tom.”
“The tent seems to be actually swallowing people,” objected Clifton. “There won’t be any places left.”
“Only wish they were turning hundreds away,” exclaimed Charlie. “Then we wouldn’t be able to go in.”
When the stampede to gain admission was over the band ceased playing with remarkable promptness, and Dave as promptly resumed speaking.
It was clearly evident that those who failed to avail themselves of the opportunity of seeing the great Spudger show on that particular afternoon would be making one of the most amazing mistakes of their lives. Dave almost said as much.
“Thank goodness we haven’t missed it,” said Bob, with a smile. “Oh,” he turned abruptly at the sound of a voice—“you here again, Joe!”
“’Tain’t nobody else,” chuckled Joe.
“Mr. Rodgers looks like a living danger signal,” said Charlie, his eyes scanning Joe’s flaming red vest.
The circus boy seemed to construe this as a great compliment. He grinned complacently.
“You fellers is certainly all to the good,” he said, graciously. “An’, say, isn’t Dave a Jim dandy?”
“Of course he is,” laughed Charlie. “How do you like circus life, Joe?”
“Not as much as I did afore I met Dave,” answered Joe. “He kinder started me a-thinkin’. I ain’t got no eddication, an’ he says if I don’t never begin I won’t have no chanc’t to get up in the band wagon. An’, say”—the freckle-faced boy laughed—“I wish’t I could play music.”
“Why?” inquired Tom.
“’Cause them fellers has an easy job.”
“How so?”
“Oh, I’m wise to ’em. Often, when the leader weren’t a-lookin’, I’ve seen ’em quit playin’—honest, I have. An’ when he gits his eyes on ’em ag’in an’ waves that there club o’ hisn, they starts up like mad.”
“Deceitful rascals,” murmured Charlie, trying to stifle a suspicious gurgle.
Within a short time the boys found their opportunity to speak to Dave. They shook hands as heartily and their tongues wagged as rapidly as though weeks had separated them. Making the best of the few minutes which were at their disposal, enough was said to render the situation clear all around.
They learned that Dave expected to be with Spudger’s until the next day, and that he had written a letter to Captain Bunderley.
“I told him Vic and I would leave for Milwaukee just as soon as my work was over,” explained the stout boy.
“Hooray!” cried Tom. “Then there is nothing for us to do but enjoy ourselves.”
“An’ I’ll show you the best seats in the house,” added Joe. “Come on!”
Of course Tom was too dignified to show any visible effects of the pleasing sensations which seized him as he entered the abode of pomp and sawdust. He had never before seen so much of either.
As the performance was about to begin, Joe immediately conducted them to the reserved seat section, where real chairs took the place of piles of lumber.
“We haven’t stampeded the menagerie and it’s cost us only twenty-five cents per,” laughed Bob.
Dave, minus his red coat and cap, soon joined them; and from their point of vantage they witnessed the “Stupendous and Gorgeous Spectacle” which Spudger always gave to his patrons.
After the show, when the crowds had departed, Dave took the crowd to the small side tent and introduced them to “Little” Georgy, Zingar, the Randolpho family and Ormond de Sylveste. The circus people all expressed profound gratification at the meeting. The young giant was particularly charmed.
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you’d have a job like mine some day,” he remarked to Tom.
“If it comes to that I’ll remember Spudger’s,” grinned the high school lad.
“We can’t have any fellows on our ball nine that measure over six feet three inches,” said Blake.
“Ball nine—ball nine!” queried Joe. “What ball nine?”
“This tall Indian here has started one on paper,” put in Victor. “He’s spoiled about a hundred perfectly good sheets. Why? Can you play?”
“Kin I play?” echoed Joe. “Well—some.”
“In the major league class, I suppose?”
Joe grinned.
“Here, here, gentlemen,” exclaimed Victor, “I hereby propose that the managing director of Clifton’s great baseball nine immediately gets an option on the services of one Joseph Rodgers, Esquire.”
“Oh, don’t I wish I could play ball and enjoy myself like other boys,” sighed the young giant.
“But think how awful it would be when you had to slide for second base,” laughed Victor.
“Wouldn’t I like to go to school an’ git on a team,” murmured Joe, staring moodily at the ground.
“Stranger things have happened, Joe,” said Bob.
“It will never happen to me if Whiffin kin prevent it,” sniffed the circus boy.
“Brace up, lad,” said Ormond de Sylveste, in a kindly tone. “At one time I was poor and ignorant, too. But there is always a chance for the most obscure to become the most prominent. I don’t wish to boast, gentlemen, but I venture to say that in my own profession there are few who dare assert their supremacy over me, and——”
“Say, is Bill Potts in there!” a disagreeable voice suddenly thundered. “By Jingo, I thought so! Ketched ag’in! If that fat barker stays here any longer there won’t be a man in the show workin’. I guess Joe’ll expect to be President of the United States next. I don’t want no idlin’ around this tent, understan’, an’——”
“A little politeness, sir!” expostulated the bareback rider, with dignity.
“I never heard the beat o’ that,” exclaimed Whiffin. His voice indicated great surprise. “Even Bill Potts is a-borrowin’ nerve from the fat one. You want ter git out o’ them fancy clothes o’ yourn, an’ buckle down to some real work.”
For an instant it actually looked as if Ormond de Sylveste was about to make some fiery retort, but, apparently changing his mind, he bowed to his new acquaintances and strode moodily away, the picture of outraged dignity.
“If you don’t take them there ‘stars’ down onc’t in a while yer couldn’t live in the same tent with ’em, they’d git that uppish,” came from Mr. Whiffin.
“Some allowances must be made for genius,” laughed Dave. “Come on, fellows. I’m almost famished.”
“Be sure to come and see me again,” cried the treble voice of “Little” Georgy.
Outside the tent, Dave led the way to the nearest restaurant with remarkable speed.
“Tom,” he said, “when you become a great physician, if some of your patients have no appetite advise them to take a two or three day course of barking. Boys, I can eat twice as much as before.”
“I have always suspected where Brandon’s cash went,” chirped Victor.
After leaving the restaurant the boys wandered around town until it was time for Dave’s duties to begin. Tom would have had no objection to seeing another performance, but this idea receiving no encouragement from the others, he proposed going to a hotel.
“I’ve got some letters to write to the fellows at school,” he said.
The boys found a hotel near by, and, later on in the evening, leaving Tom hard at work scribbling, they strolled over to the circus grounds.
“Fellows,” laughed Dave, who had been looking for them, “I have resumed my occupation of gentleman and scholar. My connection with Ollie Spudger’s Great Combined Peerless Circus and Menagerie has unexpectedly ended. Jack Gray, having recovered his voice, will in future speak from the rostrum.”
“Well, it was a jolly good lark, anyway,” remarked Bob.
“How can you tear yourself away from Mister Joe Rodgers?” asked Victor.
“He’s a good little chap,” declared Dave, “and ought to amount to something if he should have an opportunity. There doesn’t seem much chance for him here, although Whiffin isn’t such a bad fellow when one gets to understand him.”
By the gracious permission of Mr. Ollie Spudger, the boys were permitted to enter the tent so that they might say good-bye to the young giant.
“Little” Georgy seemed almost on the point of blubbering as he shook hands. Joe Rodgers was soon found. Joe’s face wore a strange expression.
“So you are goin’ ter git, eh, fellows?” he remarked, slowly. “I’m mighty glad I met this here bunch. Maybe I’ll see you ag’in some day.”
“And by that time Brandon might give you a job as his private secretary,” laughed Victor.
When the crowd returned to the hotel they found that Tom’s literary labors were not yet concluded. The others, however, having decided that it was time to turn in, pen, ink and paper were promptly wrested from him.
“If I don’t get some rest soon,” declared Dave, “I’ll be in danger of going to sleep right here.”
Although this appeal was heeded, the task of awakening the historian next morning proved to be one of heroic proportions.
“Oh ho!” he yawned, at last wearily dragging himself to his feet, in answer to their repeated knocking. “All right, Bob! No; you needn’t batter down the door. I’m coming directly.”
In spite of his objections breakfast was hurried through with unseemly haste, and a quick start made for the garage.
There, they jumped into a machine looking as spick and span as though it had just come from the salesroom.
“And this time I do hope we manage to reach Milwaukee,” said Victor.
“If Tom doesn’t get out of our sight we may,” laughed Charlie.
As the car whirled along the street Spudger’s tents were brought into view again, but none of those whom they had met could be seen.
“Poor old Joe,” sighed Dave. “I’m afraid he’ll never get that chance he wants so badly.”
With but a few vehicles on the long, straight road the motor car leaped forward at a rate which caused the miles to slip by with astonishing rapidity. Before the noon hour it rolled across the East Water Street bridge, and soon stopped in front of the garage where it had been previously left.
“Now we want to see Uncle Ralph the quickest ever!” exclaimed Victor, flicking a few spots of mud from his clothes. “By George, it seems like an age since I was on board that yacht.”
“A few more weeks of the same stuff would make you a strong, husky chap,” said Tom, loftily.
“Like yourself, I suppose?” gurgled Victor.
As the boys trooped into the hotel, perhaps with a trifle more noise and hilarity than was necessary, they heard a sonorous voice exclaim:
“Well, well; here you are, at last!”
Captain Bunderley, his weather-beaten face wreathed in smiles, stamped forward. He seized Victor Collins’ hand.
“I’ve never seen you looking better, lad!” he said. “I want to hear all about those wonderful experiences you’ve been having. Traveling with a circus, eh? And, Bob, I’d like to know how you managed to find each other.”
He led the way to the reception room, motioned them to seats and selected a divan on which to place his own heavy form.
“Sail ahead,” he commanded. “No tacking, now; run right before the wind.”
Upon Dave fell the rôle of principal spokesman. The stout boy’s broad smile grew broader as he proceeded. Captain Bunderley’s deep-throated laughter boomed out at frequent intervals.
“Capital—capital! You’ll do, my boy!” he exclaimed. “’Pon my word, you ought to succeed in life.”
“Not even an aeroplane could keep him down!” cried Tom.
Bob Somers, too, had a great deal to say, and by lunch time Uncle Ralph had learned everything worth knowing and much else besides.
Finally he rose to his feet.
“I have a little business to attend to this afternoon, so we’ll get something to eat at once,” he said.
“I was just about to suggest it myself,” murmured Dave.
The dining-room, with its ornate columns and rich decorations of the Louis XV period, was a very attractive-looking place. It suited Dave’s artistic eye to a nicety. A sigh of contentment came from his lips as he took a seat at a table by the window.
Course after course was placed before them, and the coffee stage of the proceedings had just arrived when the sound of loud voices in the corridor attracted general attention.
“Don’t go in there, boy,” exclaimed a commanding voice. “Get right out of this hotel!”
“I ain’t goin’ to, I tells yer. I know this is the place ’cause he told me he was comin’ here hisself.”
“There’s some mistake, boy; none of our guests could possibly want to see you.”
“That’s where you’re foolin’ yerself. The clerk says he’s in the eatin’ parlor. I’ll wait outside while you goes in an’ looks around. He’s a big fat feller with a round face.”
“You’re the most impudent little rooster I’ve ever met. I’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“Then I’ll do it myself.”
There was the sound of a struggle.
“Grab him, Richards!” bawled the same loud voice. “Quick!”
Following this came a snort of indignation and disgust, and the eyes of every one in the room, focused on the doorway, saw a stocky, freckle-faced boy swinging recklessly into the room, with the faultlessly-dressed manager close at his heels.
“Come back!” ordered the latter, angrily.
“Not on yer life! I sees him. There he is by the winder. Hello, Dave!”
Yes—actually—Joe Rodgers, flaming red vest, big brass buttons and all, had invaded the fashionable dining-room of a fashionable hotel, and, unabashed by his surroundings or by the looks on the faces of the horrified guests and waiters, was steering as straight a course as he could for the table at which Captain Bunderley and the boys were seated.