“After you get broken in you will have to do all this for yourself. There’s nothing like the show business to teach a fellow to depend upon himself. He soon becomes a jack-of-all-trades. As soon as you can you’ll want to get yourself a rubber coat and a pair of rubber boots. We’ll get some beastly weather by-and-by.”
The good-natured clown ran on with much good advice while he was sponging and pressing Phil’s clothes. When he had finished, the suit looked as if it had just come from a tailor shop.
Phil thanked him warmly.
“Now, you and I will see about some breakfast.”
Reaching the cook tent, the first person Phil set eyes on was his chum, Teddy Tucker. Teddy was presiding over the big nickel coffeepot, his face flushed with importance. He was bossing the grinning waiters, none of whom found it in his heart to get impatient with the new boy.
CHAPTER XIV.
AN UNEXPECTED HIT
“Another turn-away,” decided a ticket taker, casting his eyes over the crowds that had gathered for the afternoon performance.
“I guess Mr. Sparling knows his business pretty well,” mused Phil. “He knows how to catch the crowd. I wonder how many of them have come here to see me. How they would look and stare if they knew I was the kid that twisted the tiger’s tail.”
Phil’s color rose.
It was something for a boy who had been a circus performer for less than two days to have his name heralded ahead of the show as one of the leading attractions.