"Blue stripes!" cried Bunny. "A tiger doesn't have blue stripes, and my half of Splash is going to be a tiger."
"You can pretend he is a new sort of tiger," said Grandma Brown, and Bunny was satisfied with that.
That afternoon Bunny and Sue went to the homes of the neighboring children to tell them about the circus. Nearly all the children said they would come, and take part in the show in the barn.
"Oh, we'll have a fine circus!" cried Bunny Brown that night when they were all sitting on the porch to cool off, for it was quite hot.
"Yes, I guess we'll all have to come and see you act," said Daddy Brown.
"Hark! What's that?" suddenly asked Grandma Brown. They all listened, and heard some one knocking at the back door.
"I'll go and look," said grandpa. "Maybe it's a tramp. There have been some around lately."
Bunny and Sue thought of the tramps who had taken the big cocoanut-custard cake, about which I told you in the book before this one. Perhaps those tramps had gotten out of jail and had come to get more cake. Bunny and Sue sat close to mother and father while grandpa went around the corner of the house to see who was knocking at the back door.
They all heard grandpa speaking to some one. And the answers came in a boy's voice.
"What do you want?" asked grandpa.