At the same time he took a long ringmaster's whip, and the Columbine took one end of a skipping-rope, while he held the other.
"Now," said the circus proprietor, "while we twirl the skipping-rope you are to dance over it, and at the same time I will lash your shins with this whip; and if, as you skip over the rope, you can laugh and sing—like a child dancing on blue flowers in a meadow—I will give you"—the proprietor hesitated a moment—"six dollars a week."
So it was that the clown at last got an engagement.
THE END