"Humph! I'd like to see myself!" snapped the young lady—and at once went home and secured a penny for that very purpose!
"I s'pose you've got a photograph of your own self in there for the smartest boy, Reddy Martin!" suggested one of the big fellows who dared give Fred this hated nickname.
"Well," drawled Fred, his eyes sparkling, "if it lay between you and me who was the smartest, I don't believe you'd get any medal."
The boys took turns breakfasting on crackers and cheese in Mr. Martin's store. Fred's father was greatly amused by the signs in front of the tent and he wanted a private view of the wonders. But he was politely refused.
"We can't begin the show till Bobby's made the lecture, Dad," declared Fred. "And we're not going to begin till there's a crowd on the street. We'll pass them right into the store here, and I bet you and the clerks will be too busy waiting on customers to see the show at all," and he chuckled.
In only a single matter did the boys have help in the arrangements for the show. Mr. Blake, without being in the secret of the show itself, had written the lecture which Bobby was to deliver outside the tent every time a crowd gathered.
Bobby put on a shabby drum-major's coat, with one epaulet, which had been found in the Martins' attic. On his head he perched an old silk hat belonging to his father, with the band stuffed out so that it would not slip down over his ears and hide his face entirely.
He beat upon a tin pan with a padded drum-stick, and thus brought together the first crowd before the show-tent at about nine o'clock. His ridiculous figure and the noise of the drumming soon collected twenty or thirty grown people—mostly men at that hour—beside a crowd of boys, and a few timid girls who fringed the crowd.
Having called his audience together, Bobby, with a perfectly serious face, began his speech which he had learned by heart, and spoke as well as ever he recited "a piece" on Friday afternoons at school:
"Kind Friends: