“How did you get here?” asked Tum Tum.
“Oh, my masters sold me to another man, and he said he was going to put me in a circus. I guess this is it.”
“Yes, this is the circus,” answered Tum Tum. “Only it is traveling around now, instead of staying for weeks at a time in New York. We go to a new city every day, and we have a big tent instead of Madison Square Garden to act in. This white house you see over us is a tent.”
“Oh, a tent, eh?” said Dido. “Well, it is quite nice.”
“Yes, it is nice except in cold weather,” said the elephant, who not having fur, could not stand cold as bears can. “In the winter there is no circus in a tent,” said Tum Tum.
“What do you do in winter?” asked Dido.
“Oh, when it is time for the snow and ice the circus goes, I have been told, up to a place where we stay in big, warm barns until summer comes again.”
Tum Tum told Dido many things about the circus, for which I have not space in this book. And Dido also learned many new things. He learned to sleep in a cage on wheels, in which he was drawn about the country, or put on big, flat railroad cars to be pulled from place to place. This was when the circus traveled, which was, nearly always, at night.
And Dido’s new master taught him many new tricks which the dancing bear did in the circus ring, besides doing the ones George had taught him. Dido learned to ride on a bicycle, he learned to walk across a long pole, that was resting on two barrels. He learned to roll over and over inside a barrel, and he learned to let a dog sit on his back and be given a ride.
Dido liked it very much in the circus, and he made many friends, not only among the animals but among the circus folk, for Dido was a gentle bear.