Toby felt a strange sinking at his heart as the possibility suggested itself that one or both of his kind friends might be ill; for they had both been so kind and attentive to him that he had learned to love them very dearly.
But the fears of both the children were dispelled when they tried to get in at the door and were met with the smiling skeleton himself, who said, as he threw the canvas aside as far as if he were admitting his own enormous Lilly:
“Come in, my friends, come in. I have had the exhibition closed for one hour, in order that I might show my appreciation of my friend Mr. Tyler.”
Toby looked around in some alarm, fearing that Mr. Treat's friendship was about to be displayed in one of his state dinners, which he had learned to fear rather than enjoy. But as he saw no preparations for dinner he breathed more freely and wondered what all this ceremony could possibly mean.
Neither he nor Ella was long left in doubt, for as soon as they had entered, Mrs. Treat waddled from behind the screen which served them as a dressing room, with a bundle in her arms, which she handed to her husband.
He took it and, quickly mounting the platform, leaving Ella and Toby below, he commenced to speak, with very many flourishes of his thin arms.
“My friends,” he began, as he looked down upon his audience of three, who were listening in the following attitudes: Ella and Toby were standing upon the ground at the foot of the platform, looking up with wide open, staring eyes; and his fleshy wife was seated on a bench which had evidently been placed in such a position below the speaker's stand that she could hear and see all that was going on without the fatigue of standing up, which, for one of her size, was really very hard work—“My friends,” repeated the skeleton, as he held his bundle in front of him with one hand and gesticulated with the other, “we all of us know that tomorrow our esteemed and worthy friend Mr. Toby Tyler makes his first appearance in any ring, and we all of us believe that he will soon become a bright and shining light in the profession which he is so soon to enter.”
The speaker was here interrupted by loud applause from his wife, and he profited by the opportunity to wipe a stray drop of perspiration from his fleshless face. Then, as the fat lady ceased the exertion of clapping her hands, he continued:
“Knowing that our friend Mr. Tyler was being instructed, preparatory to dazzling the public with his talents, my wife and I began to prepare for him some slight testimonial of our esteem; and, being informed by Mr. Castle some days ago of the day on which he was to make his first appearance before the public, we were enabled to complete our little gift in time for the great and important event.”
Here the skeleton paused to take a breath, and Toby began to grow more uncomfortably red in the face. Such praise made him feel very awkward.