“Oh, Joe, I forgot to say, that by this time all the animals had been sent off the stage except the pony and the gander, and they stood looking at the Italian while he talked.  I never saw anything as human in dumb animals as that pony’s face.  He looked as if he understood every word that his master was saying.  After this story was over, the Italian made another bow, and then told the pony to bow.  He nodded his head at the people, and they all laughed.  Then the Italian asked him to favor us with a waltz, and the pony got up on his hind legs and danced.  You should have seen that gander skirmishing around, so as to be near the pony and yet keep out of the way of his heels.  We fellows just roared, and we would have kept him dancing all the afternoon if the Italian hadn’t begged ’ze young gentlemen not to make ze noise, but let ze pony do ze rest of his tricks.’  Pony number two came on the stage, and it was too queer for anything to see the things the two of them did.  They helped the Italian on with his coat, they pulled off his rubbers, they took his coat away and brought him a chair, and dragged a table up to it.  They brought him letters and papers, and rang bells, and rolled barrels, and swung the Italian in a big swing, and jumped a rope, and walked up and down steps—­they just went around that stage as handy with their teeth as two boys would be with their hands, and they seemed to understand every word their master said to them.

“The best trick of all was telling the time and doing questions in arithmetic.  The Italian pulled his watch out of his pocket and showed it to the first pony, whose name was Diamond, and said, ‘What time is it?’ The pony looked at it, then scratched four times with his forefoot on the platform.  The Italian said, ’Zat’s good—­four o’clock.  But it’s a few minutes after four—­how many?’ The pony scratched again five times.  The Italian showed his watch to the audience, and said that it was just five minutes past four.  Then he asked the pony how old he was.  He scratched four times.  That meant four years.  He asked him how many days in a week there were; how many months in a year; and he gave him some questions in addition and subtraction, and the pony answered them all correctly.  Of course, the Italian was giving him some sign; but, though we watched him closely, we couldn’t make out what it was.  At last, he told the pony that he had been very good, and had done his lessons well; if it would rest him, he might be naughty a little while.  All of a sudden a wicked look came into the creature’s eyes.  He turned around, and kicked up his heels at his master, he pushed over the table and chairs, and knocked down a blackboard where he had been rubbing out figures with a sponge held in his mouth.  The Italian pretended to be cross, and said, ‘Come, come; this won’t do,’ and he called the other pony to him, and told him to take that troublesome fellow off the stage.  The second one nosed Diamond, and pushed him about, finally bit him by the ear, and led him squealing off the stage.  The gander followed, gabbling as fast as he could, and there was a regular roar of applause.