“You look as if you’d stuck your head in a flour barrel,” grunted Teddy.
“Ho ho,” laughed the clown. “I’ll have to try that on the audience. That’s a good joke. To look at you, one wouldn’t think it of you, either.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. I can say funnier things than that when I want to. Why—”
But their conversation was cut short by the band striking up the tune to which Mr. Miaco always entered the ring.
“Listen to me, kid. You’ll hear them laugh when I tell ’em the story,” he called back. And they did. The audience roared when the funny man told them what his young friend had said.
His work for the day having been finished, Phil bethought himself of his trunk, which had not yet been packed. His costume was suspended from a line in the dressing tent where many other costumes were hanging to air and dry after the strenuous labors of their owners.
Phil took his slender belongings down, shook them out well and laid them in the trunk that Mrs. Waite had given him. It was too late for Phil to get his bag from the baggage wagon, so with a grin he locked his tights and his wig in the trunk.
“Guess they won’t break their backs lifting that outfit,” he mused.
Phil then strolled in to watch the show. He found many new points of interest and much that was instructive, as he studied each act attentively and with the keenness of one who had been in the show business all his life.
“Someday I’ll have a show like this myself,” nodded the boy. He did not know that he expressed his thoughts aloud until he noticed that the people sitting nearest to him were regarding him with amused smiles.