“But I sha'n't make any mistake,” said Ella, confidently, “and so you won't have to be whipped on my account; and while I am on the horse you can't be whipped, for he couldn't do it without whipping me, so you see you won't get only half as much.”
Toby brightened up a little under the influence of this argument; but his countenance fell again as he thought that his chances for getting away from the circus were growing less each day.
“You see I want to get back to Uncle Dan'l an' Guilford,” he said, confidentially; “I don't want to stay here a single minute.”
Ella opened her eyes in wide astonishment as she cried: “Don't want to stay here? Why don't you go home, then?”
“'Cause Job Lord won't let me,” said Toby, wondering if it was possible that his little companion did not know exactly what sort of a man his master was.
Then he told her—after making her give him all kinds of promises, including the ceremony of crossing her throat, that she would never tell a single soul—that he had had many thoughts, and had formed all kinds of plans for running away. He told her about losing his money, about his friendship for the skeleton and the fat lady, and at last he confided in her that he was intending to take the old monkey with him when he should make the attempt.
She listened with the closest attention, and when he told her that his little hoard had now reached the sum of seven dollars and ten cents—almost as much as he had before—she said, eagerly: “I've got three little gold dollars in my trunk, an' you shall have them all; they're my very own, for mamma gave them to me to do just what I wanted to with them. But I don't see how you can take Mr. Stubbs with you, for that would be stealing.”
“No, it wouldn't, neither,” said Toby, stoutly. “Wasn't he give to me to do just as I wanted to with? An' didn't the boss say he was all mine?”
“Oh, I'd forgotten that,” said Ella, thoughtfully. “I suppose you can take him; but he'll be awfully in the way, won't he?”
“No,” said Toby, anxious to say a good word for his pet; “he always does just what I want him to, an' when I tell him what I'm tryin' to do he'll be as good as anything. But I can't take your dollars.”