"I've half a mind," said Bertie to himself, "to go inside the tent, and ask Mr. Badger if he wants a boy. But perhaps he wouldn't like to be troubled when there's no performance on."
Bertie's ideas on circus management were rudimentary. Mr. Badger would perhaps have looked a little blue to find himself met with such a request if there had been a performance on.
"What do you think of the circus?"
The question was put by one of the individuals before referred to. He had apparently given his companions the slip, for they stood a little distance off, ostentatiously paying no attention to his proceedings. He was a short man, inclined to stoutness, and Bertie thought he had the reddest face he had ever seen.
"It's not a bad show, is it? And more it didn't ought to be, for the amount of money it cost me to put that show together no one wouldn't believe."
Bertie stared. It dimly occurred to him that it must have cost him all the money he possessed and so left him nothing to throw away upon his clothing, for his costume was distinctly shabby. But the stout man went on affably:--
"I saw you looking round, so I thought as perhaps you took a interest in these here kind of things. Perhaps you don't know who I am?"
Bertie didn't and said so.
"I'm Badger, the Original Badger. I may say the only Badger as was ever known,--for all them other Badgers belongs to another branch of the family."
The Original Badger put his hand to his neck, apparently with the intention of pulling up his shirt collar, which, however, wasn't there. Bertie stared still more. The stout man did not by any means come up to the ideas he had formed of the world-famed Badger.