What really happened to the clown, owing to Billy, we shall hear a little later.
So with only the thought to bother him that some member of the Treat family might spy him and take him out for safe-keeping before he had seen all the sights, Billy started right in at the cage nearest to hand. As for the Treats, he knew that there was nothing to do but take his chances and that they were pretty good considering the great size of the tent and the thousands of people in it.
As he approached the cage in question, a big one, he discovered that it contained six or eight animals about the size of his friend Bob, the dog at Cloverleaf, though not nearly so pleasant to look at.
“Indeed,” thought Billy to himself, “I’m glad that crowd are where they can’t get at me. I don’t like their looks. I’ll just see who they are and pass along.”
This was easier said than done for every one of the group of prisoners was restlessly pacing up and down, evidently looking for some way to get out.
It was a minute or two before Billy was able to catch the eye of one of them for they seemed to never look at anyone, afraid to, in fact. At length the largest, who seemed bolder than the rest, caught sight of Billy Whiskers and was so surprised that he stopped short to take another look. As this was the chance Billy had been waiting for, he quickly improved it.
“How are you?” said he. “Do you mind telling me the name of your interesting and lively family? I am a stranger here and want to learn all I can. As you see, I am an animal myself and have none but the friendliest feeling for all our race.”
This polite speech won for Billy an answer, as he felt sure it would.
“How do I do?” snapped the caged beast. “I’m most unhappy. We are wolves. I, myself, came from the boundless steppes of faraway Russia where I and my people for hundreds of years, have been wont to roam wild and free and far. We are all robbers and live by plundering farmers. When quite young, I grew so bold that I was finally captured alive while eating a sheep I had killed. After endless travels over land and sea, I arrived in a dreadful place called New York, and was shortly sold to this show and put into a cage with these other wretches and ever since we have been a spectacle to crowds of people day after day. I have no words with which to tell you, sir goat, how we hate this life.”
The snarl with which he said these last words was so fierce that it made Billy fairly shiver.