"Now, Jack, we'll see what good you are," said Teddy, as he climbed up on the stepladder and placed the banana on the top-most box, letting part of the fruit stick out over the edge.
"Here, Jack!" called Teddy, standing half way up the ladder. "Come on and do your trick!"
The monkey chattered a little, but came to Teddy, who picked the fuzzy creature up in his arms. Holding Jack up, Teddy showed him the banana on top of the pile of boxes.
With another chatter, Jack scrambled out of Teddy's arms, and with the usual quickness of monkeys, was soon on top of the pile of boxes—the "tower" as Ted and Jan called it. When they gave their circus they planned to cover the pile of boxes with green boughs and pretend it was a big tree in the jungle.
"Oh, see!" cried Janet in delight, as she saw Jack on top of the pile, eating the banana he found there. "He's done the first part of the trick all right, Teddy!"
"Yes, and if he does the last part as well it will be fine!" declared the little Curlytop boy. "But the last is the hardest part. Jack may want to climb down instead of jumping. But first we'll let him eat the banana, and get hungry for the second one."
So the three children stood on the ground, and watched Jack, up on the tower, eating his banana. The monkey looked down, making funny faces, which he seemed to be doing most of the time, and Trouble laughed.
"He is funny!" laughed Janet. "I'm sure the people who come to our circus will like Jack."
"They'll like him a lot more if he does tricks," said Teddy. "Come on, Jan," he called, after a while. "We'll get the net ready now. I guess it's time he jumped for the other banana."
Mrs. Martin had not seen the Curlytops take her lace curtain off the line to use for a circus net. If she had, she would, of course, have stopped them. But Teddy and Janet did not think they were doing anything very wrong. As for Trouble, he never bothered his head about it. Whatever Ted or Janet did was all right to him.