On the morning after the wonderful escape from the ravine, the whole company were, for a while, rather quiet and subdued.
Nothing was to be seen of Baby Jane but the top of her golden head. Her boys and beasts were huddled close round, trying to help her with sleepy suggestions, mostly silly, for raising an army to convert the Bad Band of the Black Mountains.
But as they squatted there on the soft sand in the drowsy warmth of the sun, the councillors began to grow sleepier and their counsels sillier, till suddenly—
'What ho!' said Sammy, and they all woke up. 'Let us have a "greatest show on earth," with a circus and gymnastics, and a play-act to follow. That will catch 'em all alive like a fly-paper, and Miss Jane can enlist the lot! But first we must crawl along in a string in a gutter, if we can find one, rigged out with boards with fine words on them:
'BABY JANE'S GIGANTIC JUBILEE CIRCUS
Bunny the Funny
And Crocky the Fair
Mounted on Mary the Musical Mare.'
'No, I won't!' interrupted Mary Carmichael angrily; 'I don't mind being a tight-rope dancer, but I won't be a spotted horse!'
Sammy went on calmly:
'Comical Capers
And Marvellous Feats,
Two shilling, shilling, and sixpenny seats.'
'Splendid!' said Baby Jane. 'All except the last words, which are wrong. The seats are all nothing seats.'
Sammy looked crestfallen—he had thought of the circus an hour before, but had spent all that time in inventing those beautiful lines.