'Look out!' cried a man, and Jimmy only just escaped being run over by a one-horse omnibus. He dodged the horse, however, and running towards the opposite pavement, he knocked against an old woman with a basket. The basket grazed his left arm, and to judge by what she said he must have hurt the woman a good deal. But Jimmy did not wait to hear all she had to say; he only thought of getting away from Coote, and ran on and on without the slightest notion where he was going. Up one street and down another the boy ran, often looking behind to see whether he was being followed, and at last stopping altogether, simply because he could not run any farther. He sat down on the kerb-stone, and then he saw for the first time that it had begun to rain quite fast.
It was a great relief to know that Coote must have taken a wrong direction, for if the policeman had taken the right one he would have caught Jimmy by this time. Still he did not intend to sit there many minutes in case Coote should be following him after all, so a few minutes later Jimmy got up again and walked on quickly.
He felt very miserable; it must be past his usual bed-time, and yet he had nowhere to sleep. He wished he were safely at Chesterham; and he made up his mind that he would never fall asleep in a waiting-room again as long as he lived.
Until now Jimmy had been making his way along streets, but very soon he saw that there were houses only on one side of the way. He had in fact come to what looked, as well as he could see in the dark, like a small common, with furze bushes growing on it, and a pond by the roadside.
But a little farther on, Jimmy fancied he heard a band playing, and then he saw what appeared to be an enormous tent, and there were lights burning near, and curious shadowy things which he could not make out at all.
Jimmy was always an inquisitive boy, and now he almost forgot his troubles in his wish to find out what was happening on the common. So he walked towards the large round tent, and the band sounded more loudly every moment.
By one part of the tent stood a cart, and in this a man was shouting at the top of his voice. And around the cart a crowd had gathered, chiefly of rather shabbily-dressed people, and one or two of them stepped out every minute or so and went inside an opening in the tent, where a stout woman stood to take their money.
Near the cart was a large picture, and Jimmy stared at it with a great deal of interest. The picture represented a lion and a clown, and the clown's head was inside the lion's mouth; whilst a little way off a very small clown, of about Jimmy's own age, stood laughing.
Jimmy had always an immense liking for lions, and also for clowns, and when they both came together and the head of the one happened to be in the mouth of the other, the temptation was almost more than he could resist.
'Now, ladies and gentlemen, walk up, walk up!' cried the man in the cart. 'All the wonders of the world now on view. Now's the time, the very last night; walk up, ladies and gentlemen, walk up.'