Kenneth looked at the marvellous horse about which everybody was excited. He saw a round and comfortable-appearing gray pony, which looked as if it had always been employed in jogging about hitched to a basket-phaeton, carrying some mild old gentlewoman, in a white cap, and her grandchildren.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," shouted the man standing on a box beside the cage, "watch the Titantic Terror of the Jungles lash his sides with his Audacious and Caudalogical Tail as he devours his food with Ravenous and Oats-destroying Teeth! See him stamp his Adamantine Hoofs as in his Savage Imagination he tramples upon the Prostrate Form of that Victim of a thousand battles, the Hardy Hunter! See him wave his crafty, whisper-detecting Ears as he buries his Horriferous Snout in the Iron-bound Oats and grinds them to Powder with his Dreadful and Molariferous Fangs from which fly the Lurid Sparks in all directions!"
"Well," said Kenneth, "I'm sure I don't think it's quite so bad as that man seems to think."
"Hush!" answered his companion; "the horse might hear you. I'm pretty sure I saw one spark. And of course you don't expect things in a circus to be just as they say they are."
"I suppose not," admitted Kenneth; "but it does seem to me they might have got a horse a little bigger."
"Bigger?" replied the other. "Why, he's twice as high as a bicycle!"
"Oh yes, I suppose he'll do pretty well. But I don't believe he's stamping his feet because he wishes he had the hardy hunter under them. I think he's doing it to scare away the flies."
"Flies!"' exclaimed the young man, scornfully. "Do you think as large an animal as that would be afraid of anything as small as a fly?"
"Well, it doesn't seem so," said Kenneth.
"Though, to be sure," went on the other, thoughtfully, "a tack is small, but how a bicycle will shy around one when it sees it! But we mustn't stand here any longer. I want to get into the other tent, and see Señor Chinchilla, the celebrated bare back-rider."