"Good for you, Teddy Tucker," said the showman, slapping the
Circus Boy on the back.
"Ouch!" howled Teddy.
"I was congratulating you, that's all," laughed Mr. Sparling.
"If it is all the same to you, please use a club when you congratulate me. I won't feel it so much."
Phil next went on to relate how Teddy had, by his quickness, made fast the rope and probably saved the top from falling in on them, and how he, Phil, had fallen on the boy and knocked him out.
Mr. Sparling surveyed the flushed face of Teddy approvingly.
"Thank you, Teddy," he said. "I'll give you a day off to go fishing, sometime, for that."
"I don't want to go fishing."
"Then you are the first showman I ever knew who did not. They are simply crazy over fishing. You'll see every one of them hanging over the rails in the early morning trying to catch fish."
"I won't. You'll see me asleep about that time, if you look in the right place," answered Teddy very promptly.