"Oh, yes. I—I didn't mean to be impolite," said Bunny, as he walked slowly back. "But I wanted to ask Mr. Winkler if we could have his monkey in our show."
"Oh, are you going to have a show?" asked Lucile, as she walked along with Sue, while Mrs. Brown, Bunny and Mart followed.
"Yes!" exclaimed Bunny, who heard the question. "We had a circus once, and we made some money. And after we saw the Opera House show you were in, we wanted to have one ourselves. So we're going to get one up. Sue can sing and I can turn somersaults. Not as good as you, of course," he said to Mart. "And one boy has some trained white mice and if we could get Mr. Winkler's monkey and——"
"And his parrot! He's got a parrot, too!" exclaimed Sue.
"Yes, if he'll let us have the parrot we could have a dandy show!" agreed Bunny.
"I hope it will be a better show than the one we were in," said Mart, with a sad little smile. "It isn't any fun to go traveling with a troupe and then have it 'bust up' on the road as ours did."
"Aren't you children very young to be traveling alone?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Haven't you any—well, any folks at all?"
She did not like to mention "father or mother," for fear both parents might be dead and to speak of them might cause sorrow to Mart and Lucile. But surely, Mrs. Brown thought, the boy and girl ought to have some one to look after them.
"Oh, we weren't exactly alone," said Lucile, who was not as old as her brother. "We were like one big family until the show failed. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were in charge, and Mrs. Jackson was very good to us. But people didn't seem to like our performance, and we didn't make enough money to keep on playing."
"I liked your show," said Bunny.