"How about the show, anyhow, Ben?" asked Ted.

"What have you got? You might as well let us know now."

"Not on your autobiography," answered Ben haughtily. "I want to say, though, that your eyes will bulge like the k.n.o.bs on a washstand drawer when you see what I've got, and then come to look at the bill for such a stupendous, striking, and singularly successful aggregation of freaks, acts, and divertis.e.m.e.nts embodied in this colossal and cataclysmic congregation of--"

"Oh, cheese it," said Kit. "You give me the pip."

"All right, have it your own way," sighed Ben. "This is what a fellow gets for serving his country, from Thomas Jefferson to John D.

Rockefeller."

"Come on," said Ted persuasively. "Loosen up and tell us what we are to have to-morrow. This is an executive session of the whole."

"You're like a lot of kids the day before Christmas. You've just got to see what mamma's hidden in the closet," said Ben. "Well, I'll let you in on a little of it."

"Shoot when you're ready," said Kit.

"I was over at Strongburg about a month ago, and, knowing that I'd have to rustle up a show soon, I wrote to a theatrical agent in Chicago to let me know if he could furnish me with a good amus.e.m.e.nt company at small cost. He wrote me that he had the very thing, and offered me one of these b.u.m 'wild west' shows, with a bunch of spavined ponies, a lot of imitation cowboys, fake Indians, and Coney Island target shooters."

"An' yer didn't take 'em?" asked Bud, in surprise.

"Tush! Well, I was up against it, when Morrison, the hotel man, told me that there was a showman in town, and perhaps I might get something out of him.

"I hunted him up. He was a typical showman. Big fellow, large as a Noah's ark, dressed like a sunset, and loud as an eighteen-inch gun."

"I saw the fellow in Soldier b.u.t.te the other day. He was talking to Wiley Creviss in the bank," said Ted. "You've described him more picturesquely than I should, but I'm convinced he's the same man."

"I asked him what he had, and he told me he could furnish me on short notice anything from a three-ring circus to a hand organ and monkey,"

continued Ben. "I told him how much money I wanted to spend, and he said he'd fix me up a show that would make everybody delighted, and I told him to go ahead. The show blew in to-night, and ran up their tents down near the corral."

"How many have you got in it?"

"I've got a balloon ascension for the afternoon, a giant and a midget, a magician, an Egyptian fortune teller, a trick mule, a Circa.s.sian beauty, and a strong man." Ben looked around proudly, and the boys burst into peals of laughter.

"Have you sc.r.a.ped the mold off of them yet?" asked Kit.

"How's that?" asked Ben haughtily.

"Have you pulled the burs off the chestnuts?"

"See here, what do you mean? Are you casting aspersions on my show?"

"Not exactly, but I think you've been stung by some old stranded side show that was taking the tie route back home. Circa.s.sian beaut! Ho-ho, likewise ha-ha! and some more."

"Ter say nothin' o' a Egyptian fortune teller from Popodunk, Ioway, an'

a wild man from ther Quaker village. Oh! give me ther smellin' salts.

I'm goin' ter hev ther histrikes," laughed Bud.

"Haf you not got a echukated vooly pig und a feller vot 'eats 'em alife'?" asked Carl.

"That's right, Dutchy. It's a b.u.m show what ain't got them," laughed Bud.

The boys were laughing until the house rang with it, and Stella poked her pretty head out of the door to ask to be told the joke. Bud complied, with many humorous embellishments.

"Don't pay any attention to them, Ben," said Stella sympathetically, "I'll take in the show from start to finish."

"Could friendship go any farther than that?" asked Kit pathetically.

"Oh, you fellows give me a pain," said Ben, rising and stalking off to bed.

He was soon followed by the others, Ted and Kit remaining behind to gather up the money and slip rubber bands around each of the packages of currency.

"We ought to have a safe in the house, Ted," said Kit, looking over the pile of money. "We often have large sums of money in the house, and some time we might get robbed."

"There's not much danger of that, Kit," answered Ted. "There are not many fellows who would have the nerve to come into this house. Too many guns, and too many fellows who are not afraid to shoot them. I'm not afraid."

"What was that?"

Kit was staring at the rear window.

"What?"

"I just looked up and thought I saw a face at the window."

"You're getting imaginative."

Just then the clock struck twelve.

"No, I don't think so. I heard a slight cracking noise and looked up.

Something white appeared at the window for an instant. It looked like the face of a child."

"Nonsense. A child couldn't look through that window. It's seven feet from the ground."

"Well, I suppose I was mistaken. Let's hide that money and go to bed."

"Where shall we put it?"

Kit looked around the room, then smiled.

"Why, in the cubby-hole, of course. There's a safe for you. We haven't used it for so long that I'd almost forgotten it."

"The very thing. n.o.body'd find it there in a blue moon."

They crossed over to a corner of the room and threw back the corner of a rug. Where the baseboard was mortised at the corner there appeared to have been a patch put in. Ted placed his hand against this, near the top, and it tipped back. It was hung on a pivot, and, as its top went in and the bottom came out, there was revealed a boxlike receptacle about two feet long and six inches deep.

"This is a bully place," said Ted, placing the packages of money within it. "It is known to only five of us, and I'll bet that most of us have forgotten its very existence."

The board was turned back into place and the rug spread out again.

"Safe as in the Strongburg Bank," said Kit. "Well, me for the feathers.