"You want to wait till you've been in this business a year or two," said Ben, sagely, "an' then you won't think much of it. Why, I've known the show towns to be thirty miles apart, an' them was the times when we had lively work of it: riding all night and working all day kind of wears on a fellow."
"Yes, I s'pose so," said Toby, with a sigh, as he wondered whether he had got to work as hard as that; "but I suppose you get all you want to eat, don't you?"
"Now you've struck it," said Ben, with the air of one about to impart a world of wisdom, as he crossed one leg over the other, that his position might be as comfortable as possible while he was initiating his young companion into the mysteries of the life. "I've had all the boys ride with me since I've been with this show, an' I've tried to start them right; but they didn't seem to profit by it, an' always got sick of the show, an' run away, just because they didn't look out for themselves as they ought to. Now listen to me, Toby, an' remember what I say. You see, they put us all in a hotel together, an' some of these places where we go don't have any too much stuff on the table. Whenever we strike a new town, you find out at the hotel what time they have the grub ready, an' you be on hand so's to get in with the first. Eat all you can, an' fill your pockets."
"If that's all a feller has to do to travel with a circus," said Toby, "I'm just the one, 'cause I always used to do just that when I hadn't any idea of bein' a circus man."
"Then you'll get along all right," said Ben, as he checked the speed of his horses, and, looking carefully ahead, said, as he guided his team to one side of the road, "This is as far as we're going to-night."
Toby learned that they were within a couple of miles of the town, and that the entire procession would remain by the road-side until time to make the grand entrée into the village, when every wagon, horse, and man would be decked out in the most gorgeous array, as they had been when they entered Guilford.
Under Ben's direction he wrapped himself in an old horse-blanket, lay down on the top of the wagon, and he was so tired from the excitement of the day and night that he had hardly stretched out at full length before he was fast asleep.