next day after Billy's midnight prowl which was Saturday, there was great commotion among the circus people, for the leading lady accused her rival, the brunette, of coming into her dressing room while she slept and destroying her blonde wig; while the pop-corn man said thieves had been at his stand and broken his glass case and eaten his pop-corn, beside they had spilled all his lemonade that he had intended using the next day; the night watchman was going to be discharged for not attending to his business; then the Indian snake charmer came along and told them the thief had visited his tent but his snakes had frightened him away.
"And he was a big fellow I can tell you. I did not dare tackle him."
"Oh my!" said the leading lady, "and to think he was in my tent and I slept through it all."
"There, I told you I did not touch your old straw colored wig!" said the brunette.
And they all said, "Do tell us all about it, what time of the night did he come, and which way did he go when he ran away?"
"All right," said the snake charmer, with a twinkle in his eye the others did not see, "sit down and I will tell you all about it,—how I was awakened by a groan, and saw standing in the middle of my tent, a huge fellow, with a long, white beard and white, agonized face; for you must know that my boa-constrictor was squeezing him to death."
"Oh, how awful! Weren't you frightened?" said the leading-lady.
"No, because I knew he could not touch me while the snake was coiled around him. At first I thought I would let the boa kill him, but he looked so awful with his eyes sticking out of his head, as the snake squeezed him tighter and tighter, that I felt sorry for him; so I began to play the music I always play when I want the snakes to come to me, and the boa stopped squeezing the goat and came to me."
"Goat, did you say? You mean burglar."
"No, I mean goat, or burglar if you would rather call him so, for your thief was nothing more or less than Billy Whiskers."