'Only what is it?' asked Jimmy, with a shaky voice.
'He won't hurt you,' was the answer. 'It's only old Billy, the lion.'
Jimmy heard him roar as if he were only a yard or two away, and he felt rather alarmed, until they had left his cage farther behind.
'Is that the lion who had your head in his mouth?' asked Jimmy.
'Well,' said the clown, 'it isn't in his mouth now, is it?'
'I didn't see the little clown,' exclaimed Jimmy, and the clown stared down at the ground.
'No,' he answered, as if he felt rather miserable, 'we shan't see him again ever.'
Then they stopped at the back of one of the vans, and Jimmy saw that there was a light inside it.
'Up you get,' said the clown, and Jimmy scrambled up a pair of wide steps which put him in mind of a bathing-machine.
The door seemed to be made in halves, and whilst the lower part was shut the upper part was open. Through this Jimmy could see inside the van, and it looked exactly like a small room, only rather dirty and untidy. As Jimmy stood on the steps staring into the van, with the clown close behind him, a girl came out from what seemed to be a second room behind the first. She had yellow hair, and her face looked very white; but although she must have changed her dress, Jimmy felt certain she was the same girl who had worn the green velvet riding-habit.