'The wild man from Borneo! Safe in an iron cage, and can't hurt yer!'

'This way for the giant and dwarf! Come in, and open yer minds!'

'Circassian beauty! Only a penny!'

'All right, keep your hair on, old chaps!' cried Archie, nearly pulled to pieces among the rival showmen. 'We calculate to work right down the row in due course, and we'll take you all in turn. Let us start fair and square with number one!'

Number one proved to be the 'Wild Man from Borneo,' a half-human looking creature with hairy arms ('Just monkey-skin stitched on to him,' Archie assured the children), who sat jabbering in a corner of his cage, making occasional ape-like grabs at the clothing of the passers-by. He was such a palpable fraud that they soon left him, to gaze on the genuine charms of the fat woman, who sat stolid and smiling on a sofa, displaying a stout ankle to the best advantage. Peggy was rather fascinated, but Archie made such very rude inquiries as to whether she were aspiring to attain an equal bulk that she indignantly dragged him away to view the living skeleton, a fearful, hollow-cheeked object, whose bones could almost be counted. After that came the giant and dwarf, the former a weedy specimen of unwholesome overgrowth, while the latter looked as if he had been reared upon gin to keep him small. Then there was the Circassian Beauty, with the strong suggestion of Whitechapel about her, the bearded lady, the man with the expansive skin, the six-legged calf, and the two-headed duck, to say nothing of the man who ate fire and swallowed swords as if they constituted his usual diet.

Archie insisted upon trying both the swing-boats and the merry-go-round, and supported the drooping Peggy (who found the motion tend to sea-sickness) with a firm arm, otherwise I fear she would have slipped off her prancing steed altogether. They spent quite a long time in the shooting-gallery, and won a cocoa-nut, which Bobby proudly carried round the fair, and they had their photographs taken in a group, but some air-bubbles having unfortunately got on to the plate, their countenances came out speckled as though they were suffering from a virulent attack of small-pox; but Peggy kept it, all the same, as a memento of the occasion. Archie peeped into the cinematograph, but judging it not very suitable for his little companions, marched them on to hear the gramophone instead, which was winding out a rather indistinguishable song.

'I can't hear a single one of the words,' said Peggy, rather disappointed. 'Something makes such a buzzing all the time.'

'Yes, that's the machinery. I guess they've not got it set up quite square. I'd soon fix it for them, if they'd let me. I took ours all to pieces once at home'—and Archie glanced quite wistfully at the instrument, almost ready to offer his services gratis, till a suggestive pull from Peggy in the direction of the door caused him to remember that his friends might prefer the superior attractions of the menagerie.

Neither Peggy nor Bobby had ever seen a wild-beast show before, for those visits to the Zoo, which are the joy of little Londoners, do not fall to the share of country children, and Archie had quite a lively time keeping them out of harm's way, for Peggy declared the leopard looked so exactly like Tabbyskins at home that she must positively try to stroke it, and was under the rope and up to the bars before Archie could seize her by her skirts and drag her back, while Bobby's curiosity on the subject of jackals and hyenas nearly led to the ejection of the whole party from the tent. The small rodents and the mongoose delighted Peggy, and they would have stopped for ever watching the monkeys, and feeding them on nuts and biscuits, but Archie had other plans.

'There's a circus down by the river, with Japanese acrobats, and performing dogs, and a pig that stands on its head. I know you'd just admire to see them; and it can't be late yet, so come right along!'