"Sam-u-el," again came a cry from the fat woman, "are you never coming in?"
"Not yet, my angel," said the skeleton, placidly, as he crossed one thin leg over the other, and looked calmly at her. "Come here an' see Job's new boy."
"Your imprudence is wearin' me away so that I sha'n't be worth five dollars a week to any circus," she said, impatiently; but at the same time she came toward the candy stand quite as rapidly as her very great size would admit.
"This is my wife Lilly—Mrs. Treat," said the skeleton, with a proud wave of the hand, as he rose from his seat and gazed admiringly at her. "This is my flower, my queen, Mr.—Mr.—"
"Tyler," said Toby, supplying the name which the skeleton—or Mr. Treat, as Toby now learned his name was—"Tyler is my name, Toby Tyler."
"Why, what a little chap you are!" said Mrs. Treat, paying no attention to the awkward little bend of the head which Toby had intended for a bow. "How small he is, Samuel!"
"Yes," said the skeleton, reflectively, as he looked Toby over from head to foot, as if he were mentally trying to calculate exactly how many inches high he was, "he is small; but he's got all the world before him to grow in, an' if he only eats enough— There, that reminds me. Job isn't going to give him any supper, because he didn't work hard enough."
"He won't, won't he?" exclaimed the large lady, savagely. "Oh, he's a precious one, he is, an' some day I shall just give him a good shakin' up, that's what I'll do. I get all out of patience with that man's ugliness."
"An' she'll do just what she says," said the skeleton to Toby, with an admiring shake of the head. "That woman hain't afraid of anybody, an' I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she did give Job a pretty rough time."
Toby thought, as he looked at her, that she was large enough to give 'most any one a pretty rough time, but he did not venture to say so. While he was looking first at her, and then at her very thin husband, the skeleton told his wife the little which he had learned regarding the boy's history, and when he had concluded she waddled away toward her tent.