We went to a big house Mr. Bonelli called a hotel, and the trunks came after we did, and everything was taken out of them again.
We stayed there at that hotel for a long time, and almost right away we began going to a theatre to act. It wasn’t the same theatre as the one where we had been before, but it was like it and people came to watch us just as they had at the first theatre.
After that we often rode on the cars. We went to a great many different places, and always there was a theatre, and always we went through just the same tricks in just the same way, and there were lights and music, and the people clapped their hands and laughed.
All the while I remembered Tommy, but I didn’t remember him as often as I used to. I was too busy, and then I was tired all the time, too.
IX
AFTER a while we came back home again. We didn’t begin acting right away, though. We practised one or two new tricks. I learned to turn somersaults and to balance a ball on my nose.
Then one night we went to the theatre again. We went quite early that night, and we went by a different way from the way we had gone before. I don’t know why that was. We used to go through a narrow dark street with ash barrels standing in it, and in through the back door of the theatre; but this time we went along a broad bright street where there were crowds of people, and Mr. Bonelli led us in the big front way.
There were big boards standing in the hall of the theatre, with pictures on them,—and one was a picture of me! Me, in my clown clothes up on a high stool and grinning. The other dogs were sniffing about and didn’t see it, and I wouldn’t have seen it only Mr. Bonelli stooped and picked me up in his arms. “Now look! Look at yourself, my little clown dog,” said he. “Is it not a good likeness?” And he took hold of my head and turned it toward the picture.