"Bless my reserved seat ticket!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "I never heard of such a thing! But, Tom, I'm sure we'll win out."
"Get something startling to give the king," advised Ned, and Tom began opening one of the boxes that had been transported with such labor from the coast.
"Delby had much better luck with his mule drivers than we did Tom," remarked Ned as he saw the two natives standing by the pack animals of the rival circus man. "They evidently didn't get scared off by the giants."
"No, but probably he didn't tell them where they were headed for. Though, as a matter of fact, I don't believe any one has anything to fear from these big men. All they ask is to be let alone. They're not at all warlike, and I don't believe they'd attack the other natives. But probably their size makes them feared, and when our drivers heard the word 'giant' they simply wilted."
"Guess you're right. But come on, Tom. If we're going to make the king a present that will open his eyes, and get him on our side instead of Delby's, we'd better be getting at it."
"I will. This is what I'm going to give him," and Tom brought out from a box a small toy circus, with many performing animals and acrobats, the whole being worked by a small steam engine that burned alcohol for fuel. A little water put in the boiler of the toy engine, a lighting of the alcohol wick and there would be a toy that even a youngster of the United States might be proud to own.
"Mah land a massy!" exclaimed Eradicate as Tom got the apparatus ready to work. "Dat shore will please him!"
"It ought to," replied the young inventor. "Come on, now I'm ready."
Delby had not yet come from the king's hut, and as Tom and his friends, bearing the new toy, were about to leave the structure that had been set aside for their use, they saw a crowd of the giant men approaching. Each of the big men carried a club and a spear.
"Bless my eye glasses!" gasped Mr. Damon. "Something is wrong. What can it be?"