“Why not?” asked Douglas. “I am sure I don't know what they do inside the tents, but the parade looked very promising.”
“The PARADE!” the two women echoed in one breath. “Did YOU see the parade?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Douglas, enthusiastically. “But it didn't compare with the one I saw at the age of eight.” He turned his head to one side and looked into space with a reminiscent smile. The widow's red-haired boy crept close to him.
“The Shetland ponies seemed as small as mice,” he continued, dreamily, “the elephants huge as mountains, the great calliope wafted my soul to the very skies, and I followed that parade right into the circus lot.”
“Did you seed inside de tent?” Willie asked, eagerly.
“I didn't have enough money for that,” Douglas answered, frankly. He turned to the small boy and pinched his ear. There was sad disappointment in the youngster's face, but he brightened again, when the parson confessed that he “peeped.”
“A parson peeping!” cried the thin-lipped Miss Perkins.
“I was not a parson then,” corrected Douglas, good-naturedly.
“You were GOING to be,” persisted the spinster.
“I had to be a boy first, in spite of that fact.”