As it was Miss Crocodile's turn to appear as the Queen of the Ring, they took Mary at her word, though she had not meant it, and, having taken away her skirt and put it on Miss Crocodile, they spotted her like a leopard and she had to canter round the ring, watering the sand with bitter tears, while Miss Crocodile, looking very winsome with her little legs crossed, sat sideways upon her and smiled at the audience.
Miss Crocodile was at first quite a brilliant success. Twice she leapt nimbly through the hoop of bent bamboo held aloft by the Bear, but by the third round Mary's sadness had turned to spite.
As before, Miss Crocodile rose into the air and shot through the hoop, but to her dismay she found no horse on the other side for her to come down upon, and she alighted on her chin, balanced for a moment with her tail pointing to the sky, and then fell flat on her back. Mary Carmichael had stopped short under the hoop!
Mary Carmichael had stopped short under the hoop.
At this moment the Rabbit came racing into the ring mounted on a curious four-legged animal which looked strangely like the Piccaninny and Patsey joined together and covered with a rug.
'A race!' squeaked the Rabbit. 'My pony Joey against old Spots-and-corners!'
The spotted Horse appealed to the Ring-master to stop the Rabbit's rudeness, but all the same began to gallop furiously to show that she could do at least one thing well. But the Rabbit, being nearer the middle of the ring, had a much shorter course, and would have won easily if only Patsey, who was the hind legs, could have run as fast as the Piccaninny. As it was, the strange pony grew longer and longer, until the Rabbit, who had a foot on each, was nearly pulled in half. Suddenly the Pony broke in the middle, and both halves and the Rabbit, all mixed up in the ring, joined in a fearful battle on the ground.
'The silly little cuckoos!' squeaked the Rabbit breathlessly, as he arose from the tangled heap. 'I warned them about that.'
After that the three children were led in with ropes round their necks and let loose within a little fence, which represented a cage. Then 'Leo, the heroic Baby Tamer,' trembling visibly, entered, and holding out a stick for that ferocious creature Baby Jane to jump over, tried to subdue her by the power of the eye. But she seemed to consider his magical gaze merely rude, and, looking as like Miss McColl in a temper as she could, she crept towards him. She must have looked very like, for, with a screech of real fright, the Lion fell flat on his back. Before the wretched creature had time to rise the three savage brutes were upon him.