Chapter III · THE CAPTAIN MEETS A RASCAL.

The proprietor of the circus was most profuse in his gratitude. He was a gent who, without exaggeration, could be called effulgent. He certainly had a rush of words to the mouth, but I declined to let the flow of gas overcome me, rigidly insisting on my rights, and demanding that he should make good and cough up. Seeing that I could not be bluffed, he finally extended an invitation for me to accompany him to his headquarters at the circus grounds, where he could renumerate me according to his promise.

“I want you to understand,” he said, “that I am a man of my word. I am Samuel P. Slick, proprietor and owner of Slick’s Mammoth Circus and Colossal Aggregation of Wild Beasts.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Slick,” said I. “I am highly flavored. Lead on, and I will stick to you closer than a porous plaster to a rheumatic shoulder blade.”

Visions of that five hundred percolated through my cerebellum. In fancy I was already fingering various long, green certificates with pictures of presidents upon them. Why, I had that money spent before we even hove in sight of the circus grounds.

Mr. Slick led me to a small tent abaft the main tent. Little Fido followed us cheerfully. As soon as we were inside the small tent, and thus shielded from prying eyes, Mr. Slick sunk his grappling hooks into his trowsers pocket and dragged up a solitary greasy five-dollar bill, which he beamingly offered me.

“Take it, son—take it!” he urged magnanimously. “You deserve it, for that dog of yours is really a wonder.”

“I beg your hasty pudding,” said I, refraining from cleaving unto the fiver; “but haven’t you made a slight mistake?”

“Eh?” said he quickly. “Why, I thought I said five. Is it possible that I said one? Oh, well, never mind; we’ll call it five, just the same, for it certainly was worth it. It’s yours!”

“What under the canister of heaven do you take me for?” I cried warmly. “You said five hundred. Get busy, Mr. Slick, and add about ninety-nine duplicates to that lonesome William.”

Immediately Mr. Slick blew up. He turned purple in the face, and looked like a toad with the colic.

“Why, you young scoundrel,” he roared, “are you trying to bluff me out of a lot of real money? I said I’d give any one five dollars to save my elephant, and I meant it. Under the circumstances, I’m not obliged to pay you a cent, for you didn’t pull the elephant out; it was that there dog that did it. But I can’t give money to a dog, and so——”

He started to put the bill back into his pocket.

I reached right out and secured it.

“I can take money from one,” I remarked, “and that’s just about what you are—and then a few. Unfortunately the United States slanguage does not furnish adjectives suitable to fit your particular case, and, as it happens that I can’t speak French a great deal better than I can speak it, I’ll refrain from attempting the impossible task of telling you just what I think of you. It chances that I’m busted; otherwise I would spurn your filthy lucifer with ignominy.”

I left him in high dudgeon, and went right away from there. I’ll admit that I was extensively sore; but five bones would purchase a beefsteak and trimmings, and I was again languishing with hunger.

We dined, Fido and I, and we went the limit, from beef a la mud to demi tassles. When I had tipped the waiter munificently I found that only twenty cents of the late-lamented fiver remained in the exchequer. With that I purchased a flagrant Havana cigar, and again set forth upon my weary tramp toward my predestination.

I think I had left the city about a mile astern, and was slowly oozing along, buried in deep thought, when the sudden consummate blast of an automobubble horn gave me such a start that I jumped about ten feet straight up into the ambient atmosphere.

Now, it happened that the gasoline jaunting car was approaching from behind with considerable acceleration. I am sure the buzz wagon could not have been more than ten rods behind me when the cheffonier blew that blast on his horn, and the blasted thing made me jump.

And the machine was moving with such expedience that when I came down I alighted fairly on the cushioned seat in the tonneau.

By the time I got my breath and quieted the spasmatic beatings of my heart, I realized that I was comfortably languishing in a strictly first-class, up-to-date naughty-mobile that was taking me toward Boston a great deal faster than I could walk.

Besides yours truly, the only other person in the car was the driver, who was so preoccupied with his job of taking the road turns at about seventy miles an hour, that he had not even seemed casually to notice the unceremonious manner in which I had dropped in on him.

The old gocart was a good one. On looking it over with the eye of a cricket, I perceived at once that in the way of such machines it might be called the ne plus ulster.

I congratulated myself with impunity. What could be more satisfactory than to make a portion of my journey in this manner? With a sigh of contentment, I settled back, murmuring in dulcet tones:

“Let her rip, old boy! As long as you don’t try to hurdle a stone wall or climb a tree, you can’t feaze little Walter.”

Then came a sudden horrifying thought: My dog—my poor little dog Fido! What had become of him?

I turned to cast my eyes backward, but, fearing I might not recover them if I did so, I refrained, and simply looked.

That is, I tried to look, but the course astern was simply blotted out by a cloud of dust. There was so much dust in the air that it seemed to crowd itself for room. I felt sure we were tearing up the solid earth at such a rate that where the road had been there would remain nothing but a long, deep ditch after we had passed over it.

Poor little Fido! Would I ever again behold my faithful little quinine companion? I feared not.

In a short time, however, we struck a long strip of macadamized bullyvard, and, again looking round, I pereevered that we were no longer distributing the highway over the adjacent country.

Imagine my unbounded amazement and joy on discovering my little dog a few rods abeam, coming like the wind, his eyes protruding like glass doorknobs, and something like a yard and a half of his tongue hanging from his mouth. He was simply making tremendous endeavors to keep up with that car, which now seemed to be only occasionally connecting slightly with the extremely remote elevations—and he was practically doing it.

But I realized that this could not last long. Speedy as he surely was, Fido could not continue to hit it up at something better than a mile a minute for more than forty or fifty miles without eventually becoming weary and discouraged.

On the spur of the momentum I decided that something must be done.

Then I called to little Fido, making at the same time an encouraging genuflexion with my lily-white hand. He responded at once with a tremendous burst of speed and a flying leap that brought him sailing over the back of the machine into the tonneau beside me.

TO BE CONTINUED.