Clown Leapfrog’s joke.
Church Mouse had tried to get a real live tiger, but he found that he could not afford to pay for a tiger’s ticket all the way from India, so he got his friend Field Mouse to put on striped clothes and look very fierce and be the tiger. Mole was the elephant and White Rabbit put some wool around his neck for a mane and pretended that he was a lion. This circus was held at night and the glow worms came in free on condition that they would hang from the top of the tent and give all the light that was needed.
Church Mouse had been so careful in arranging the circus that when the animals came they thought it was the finest show which they had ever seen. When they got to looking too closely at anything and began to wonder if all lions were white and had long ears, the lights would go out all at once and they had to think about something else. Over in one corner was a little musk rat in a tank and all the animals and all the birds, although they thought that they had seen him before, believed that he was a hippopotamus. The more they looked at him the more they wondered, for he seemed like such a wonderful animal.
Salamander says he eats fire.
When the time for the circus came, all the birds and all the animals gathered around the ring for which more than a hundred ants had brought the sand. There was a loud clapping of hands and the Tumblebug Brothers came into the centre of the ring kissing their hands to the crowd and making a low bow to everybody. They leaped up into the air and turned somersaults and stood on their heads, and whirled around on their backs. Every time they did anything wonderful all the beasts and all the birds clapped their paws or shook their wings and said: “Isn’t this a very fine show, indeed?”