"Why, seems like," began the other, only too willingly, "her candle blew out just when she got up to the door of her room, which was wide open; so what does Nora do but feel her way in. She had some clean clothes in one arm that she wanted to lay on her bed while she lighted her candle again. But when she touched a hairy object that moved and whined-like, she nearly jumped out of her skin, because she felt just dead sure it must be one of the tigers that she always believed the circus men had never got back."
The three other boys roared at the picture conjured up by this vivid description, and it was a full minute before the narrator could go on with his story.
"Nora she climbed down both flights of stairs like she had wings," he went on to tell in his humorous fashion; "seems like she must have slid from the top to the bottom of the upper flight. My dad ain't afraid of anything, so me and him both armed ourselves, and we snuck up to find out what had scared the hired girl. And there was poor Nicodemus, asettin' all curled up on the bed, and blinkin' his little rat eyes at the light we shoved into the room ahead of our guns."
Again there was a general laugh, as if the subject appealed to their love for the ridiculous; and they did not consider the alarm of poor Nora one little bit.
"Of course I laughed, and my dad did the same; but he told me then and there he had to choose between that bear cub and a good cook; and well, you know how it's always bound to turn out when a cook's in the scales. Poor Nicodemus got it in the neck. He has to go."
Toby made a queer sound and again his hand might have been seen to press against his pocket, as though he fancied he had the wherewithal right there to purchase the long coveted pet of Bandy-legs.
"But what did you do with him?" asked Max.
"Oh! nothing yet," came the reply. "Dad he said he'd look after him while I was gone on this trip, but he insisted that I part with my pet as soon as I came home again. So Toby, some time we'll talk it over, and you make me a good offer. He ought to be worth something decent, even to circus people. Bet you that Mr. Jenks'd have paid me ten dollars for him, spot cash."
Toby did not make any reply, but he gulped as though he could already see the coveted bear cub in a nice new cage, constituting one of the attractions in his new collection, to be kept out on the farm his folks owned some miles away from Carson, and where the offensive odors that always go with a menagerie might not disturb any sensitive nose.
"Ever since then," continued Bandy-legs, thoughtfully, believing the seed had doubtless fallen upon fallow ground, and would bear fruit in season, "our cook has been actin' queer-like. She keeps alookin' under tables all the while like she expected to see tigers and lions acrouchin' there, ready to take a bite out of her. And she's even got to callin' my little Nicodemus bad names. She says he's sure a chip of the Ould Nick. That's what she told me this morning, when I was getting a big pie she made for me yesterday, and which is safe in a box in the wagon here."