Dido came down, and had his breakfast with George and Tom. Afterward the telephone man climbed down, and gave Dido a piece of pie from his dinner pail.
“That is to pay you because I hit you on the nose,” said the man. “I am very sorry, and so I give you this little treat.”
And I think Dido understood, and forgave the man. For the dancing bear ate the pie, and then, when George told him to, Dido let the lineman pat him on the head.
“Now we will travel on again,” said George after a bit, and away he and Tom went with Dido, blowing nice tooting tunes on the brass horn, and giving a dancing-bear show wherever they could find a crowd of persons with money to toss into the hat.
All through the long summer days Dido traveled about with his masters, and then one day there came a change. One night, after he had danced many times that day, Dido and his masters stopped at a hotel. Dido was allowed to sleep out in the stable where there were no horses to be frightened, while Tom and George went in the hotel to eat.
The next morning Dido saw a strange man with his masters when they came out to the stable to feed him.
“There is our dancing bear,” said George to the new man. “Do you think you would like to buy him?”
“If he can do all the tricks you say he can I may,” answered the other man.
“I will show you what tricks he can do,” spoke George. “Come, Dido, here is a sweet cracker for you. Now do your tricks.”
So out in front of the stable Dido danced, marched like a soldier and turned somersaults.