"Yes," agreed her brother. "But maybe I can make Skyrocket let Top ride on his back, and teach 'em some other tricks. Come here, Top!" he called to the white poodle with the black spot on top of his head. "Let's see you walk on your hind legs."
Top was very willing to do this, and while Ted and Janet sat on boxes in the barn, with their other pets around them, Uncle Toby's poodle went through his performance. When he had walked on his hind legs in a little circle he suddenly sneezed.
"Oh, maybe he's catching cold!" cried Janet.
"No, I think that was a trick," suggested Teddy. "Sneeze, Top!" he ordered. Surely enough, the poodle sneezed, and he would do it every time Teddy or Janet told him to.
"Oh, he knows two tricks, besides the one he does with Tip," Teddy said in delight. "Maybe he does a lot more. I wish Uncle Toby had written them down, so we'd know what the dogs can do for our circus."
"We can write to Uncle Toby, when daddy gets the address, and ask about the tricks," Janet said.
"Yes," agreed Teddy, "we can do that. I wonder if Slider can do any tricks?" he asked, when Top had been rewarded for his efforts with a little bone to gnaw.
"Do alligators do tricks?" asked Janet, as she reached in through the bars of Mr. Nip's cage and scratched the head of the red and green parrot.
"I guess they do," Teddy answered. "If they don't we'll teach our Slider to do a trick. I'm going to take him out of his tank."
The cage of the little pet alligator was a sort of tank, in the bottom of which was some water, and in this were little pebbles, like those in some goldfish bowls. The tank stood near a window in the barn where the sun shone in, for Mr. Martin had told the Curlytops that their pets who lived in warm, or tropical, countries must be kept where it was warm and sunny. That was what they were used to in their native lands.