"Well, you look as if you got about all you needed, at any rate," said Ben, as he mentally compared the plump boy at his side with the thin, frightened-looking one who had run away from the circus with his monkey on his shoulder and his bundle under his arm.
"Is Ella here?" asked Toby, after a pause, during which it seemed as if he were thinking of much the same thing that Ben was.
"Yes, an' she 'keeps talkin' about what big cards you an' her would have been if you had only staid with the show. But I'm glad you had pluck enough to run away, Toby, for a life like this ain't no fit one for boys."
"And I was glad to get back to Uncle Dan'l," said Toby, with a great deal of emphasis. "I wouldn't go away, without he wanted me to, if I could go with a circus seven times as large as this. Do you suppose young Stubbs would act bad if I was to take him for a walk?"
"Who?" asked Ben, looking down at the crowd of boys with no slight show of perplexity.
"Mr. Stubbs's brother," and Toby motioned to the door of the cage. "I'd like to take him up in my arms, cause it would seem so much like it used to before his brother died."
Ben was seized with one of the very worst laughing spasms Toby had ever seen, and there was every danger that he would roll off the seat before he could control himself; but he did recover after a time, and as the purple hue slowly receded from his face, he said:
"I'll tell you what we'll do, Toby. You come to the tent when the afternoon performance is over, an' I'll fix it so's you shall see Mr. Stubbs's brother as much as you want to."
Just then Toby remembered that Ben was to be his guest for a while that day, and after explaining all Aunt Olive had done in the way of preparing dainties, invited him to dinner.
"I'll come, Toby, because it's to see you an' them that has been good to you," said Ben, slowly, and after quite a long pause: "but there ain't anybody else I know of who could coax me out to dinner, for, you see, rough fellows like me ain't fit to go around much, except among our own kind. But say, Toby, your uncle Dan'l ain't right on his speech, is he?"