It surely seemed as if every boy in the village knew that Toby Tyler had remained in the tent after the circus was over, and almost all of them were waiting around the entrance when the two boys came out with the monkey.
If Toby had staid there until each one of his friends had looked at and handled the monkey as much as he wanted to, he and Abner would have remained until morning, and Mr. Stubbs's brother would have been made very ill-natured.
He waited until his friends had each looked at the monkey, and then he and Abner started home, escorted by nearly all the boys in town.
The partners in the amateur circus scheme were nearly as wild with joy as Toby was, for now their enterprise seemed an assured success, since they had two real ponies and a live monkey to begin with. They seemed to consider it their right to go to Uncle Daniel's with Toby; and when the party reached the corner that marked the centre of the village, they decided that the others of the escort should go no farther—a decision which relieved Toby of an inconvenient number of friends.
As it was, the party was quite large enough to give Aunt Olive some uneasiness lest they should track dirt in upon her clean kitchen floor, and she insisted that both the boys and the monkey should remain in the yard.
Toby had an idea that Mr. Stubbs's brother would be treated as one of the family; and had any one hinted that the monkey would not be allowed to share his bed and eat at the same table with him, he would have resented it strongly.
But Uncle Daniel soon convinced him that the proper place for his pet was in the wood-shed, where he could be chained to keep him out of mischief, and Mr. Stubbs's brother was soon safely secured in as snug a place as a monkey could ask for.
Not until this was done did the partners return to their homes, or the centre of attraction, the tenting grounds, nor did Toby find time to get his supper and go for the cows.
Not once during the afternoon had Toby said anything to Abner of the good fortune that might come to him through old Ben; but when he got back from the pasture and met Uncle Daniel in the barn, he told him what the old driver had said about Abner.
"Are you sure you heard him rightly, Toby, boy?" asked the old gentleman, pushing his glasses up on his forehead, as he always did when he was surprised or perplexed.