Joe blushed.
CHAPTER XXI
ALMOST CAUGHT
“Well, now, Miss Helen, what’s the trouble?” asked the ring-master, while Joe continued to gaze at the “vision.”
“Oh, I can’t get any lump sugar for Rosebud, and you know he won’t eat the other kind.” Her lips pouted prettily, and then she smiled—Joe declared at him, though it may have been at both of them.
“No lump sugar, eh? Well, that sure is a calamity!” laughed Jim Tracy. “I’ll have to see to that. Rosebud must have his sugar.”
“If he doesn’t, you know he won’t do his tricks well,” went on the girl, now smiling broadly. “Please get some for me, Jim.”
“I sure will, if I have to rob the breakfast table! I’ll be back in a minute,” he added to Joe. “You might wait here.”
Joe was perfectly willing to wait. He hoped the “vision” would return.
“Is he a new performer?” asked the girl, nodding and smiling at Joe, as she walked off with the ring-master.
“Well, no, not exactly, Miss Helen. I’ve made him an offer—I just had to, after I saw him doing some stunts on a trapeze—but he seems to think he likes magic better.”