“I guess you’ll make some cash,” went on the clown. “But that’s our cue to enter the ring. Come on now, laugh and smile. A clown that looks as if he had lost his best friend isn’t much use in a circus. Be happy!
“Hoop la!” he went on, as he ran from the dressing-tent into the ring. “Oo la la! Tra-la-la! La-de-da!”
Then he turned a couple of handsprings, very nimbly, in spite of his age, and went on with his act, which, if roars of laughter indicated anything, must have pleased the audience.
Jack ran out with some of the other clowns, carrying a pair of his new paper wings. Other pairs, for he had made several that afternoon, were at different parts of the ring, ready for him, as he broke a pair each time he did his act.
There was an unusually large crowd present and every performer, feeling the stimulation of it, was doing his best. It seemed to Jack that he could do funnier capers than he had ever before attempted, and soon he had a goodly section of the assemblage laughing at his tricks with the imitation wings.
“Most merrily mirth-making,” said Mr. Waddleton, the “adjective man,” as he passed near Jack. “I’m watching you. I’m going to have your new act on the bills.”
This encouraged the boy, and he went on with a vim, doing his odd dance, his big wings flapping out behind him.
“Ha! Hum! Not so bad. Not half bad!” remarked Mr. Paine, the manager, who, in accordance with his custom, was passing about the ring observing matters. “You’re doing very well, Jack.”
This made Jack forget, in a measure, his troubles—those caused by his life at the professor’s house, and his flight from it, as well as those for which his enemies in the circus were responsible.
Jack felt a sense of happiness as he crawled into his bunk in the sleeping-car that night, and he was becoming so used to the strange life that he did not lie awake very long. Before he knew it, morning came, and the show was at the next stop.