“Who knows?” asked Tum Tum. “Perhaps they will be put in a book. I never thought my adventures would be printed, but they were. Just you wait.”
So Dido waited, and while he waited the circus went on from place to place. People came into the big tent to look at the animals, and watch those who, like Dido, did tricks. Very often Dido’s new master would think up a different trick for Dido to do, and the bear was very anxious to please.
There was one trick Dido learned to do which he did not like at all, at first. This was jumping through a big wooden ring which had little jets of fire all around it. At least Dido thought it was fire, for the jets glowed brightly, though they were not hot.
At first when his master brought out this glowing, blazing hoop, or ring, Dido shrank away from it. But his master stood on the other side of it, holding out an apple and a bun. Dido wanted both, very much, but when he walked around the outside of the hoop, instead of leaping through it to get the treat, his master put them away.
“No, no, Dido,” he said. “To get the apple and bun you must jump through the hoop. Come on. It won’t hurt you. You know I would never do anything to hurt you.”
So, after a bit, [Dido did jump through the blazing hoop to get the apple], and he found he was not hurt in the least, nor burned. And, later on, he learned that around the hoop were only tiny electric lights, like those which are sometimes put on Christmas trees in place of candles, and these lights you can hold in your hand without feeling any heat.
So Dido learned a new trick, and when he did it the people in the circus tent clapped their hands loudly. By this time Dido had learned that this meant they were pleased with him.
The people also clapped when Tum Tum did his tricks, and one day Tum Tum and Dido performed a trick together. They had to practice it a long while, though, before it was well done. And this was the trick:
On the broad, strong back of the jolly elephant was built a platform of boards. It was square, and made so it could be lifted on and off, being fastened on by broad straps, as are the little houses on the elephants’ backs in circus parades.
By means of a little ladder Dido and his new master could climb up to this platform on Tum Tum’s back, and there, as the big elephant marched around the ring, Dido did his dance, while the man played on the same horn that Tom had used.