ZENOBIA’S INFIDELITY
Dr. Tibbitt stood on the porch of Mrs. Pennypepper’s boarding-house, and looked up and down the deserted Main Street of Sagawaug with a contented smile, the while he buttoned his driving-gloves. The little doctor had good cause to be content with himself and with everything else—with his growing practice, with his comfortable boarding-house, with his own good-looks, with his neat attire, and with the world in general. He could not but be content with Sagawaug, for there never was a prettier country town. The Doctor looked across the street and picked out the very house that he proposed to buy when the one remaining desire of his soul was gratified. It was a house with a hip-roof and with a long garden running down to the river.
There was no one in the house to-day, but there was no one in any of the houses. Not even a pair of round bare arms was visible among the clothes that waved in the August breeze in every back-yard. It was Circus Day in Sagawaug.
The Doctor was climbing into his gig when a yell startled him. A freckled boy with saucer eyes dashed around the corner.
“Doctor!” he gasped, “come quick! The circus got a-fire an’ the trick elephant’s most roasted!”
“Don’t be silly, Johnny,” said the Doctor, reprovingly.