“Will I see Mr. Marco soon again?” asked Andy.

“For sure dot vas.  He toldt me vot to do.  Vhen we reach dot Cliftons, you vill go mit Billy Blow.  He vill takes care of you till morning.  Den you goes to dot Empire Hotel und sees Miss Stella Starr.”

“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Andy brightly and hopefully.  “And who is Billy Blow, please?”

“Him,” explained Hans, pointing to the sleeping man with the sad, tired face—­“dot is Billy Blow, the clown.”

“Eh, what—­clown?  Not the one who rides the donkey and tells such funny stories?”

“Oh, yaw,” declared the musician in a matter-of-fact way.

Andy was naturally surprised.  He could hardly realize that the person he was looking at could ever make up as the mirth-provoking genius who was the life and fun of the big circus ring.

“Poor Billy!” said Hans, shaking his head solemnly.  “First his vife falls from a horse.  She vas in dot hospitals.  Den his little poy, Midget, is sick.  Poor Billy!”

Andy suddenly remembered something.  He craned his neck and looked steadfastly along the road.

“I want to leave the wagon when we get a little further along,” he said.

“I likes not dot,” answered Snitzellbaum.  “Maybe you gets in droubles, so?”

“No, it’s when we reach an old barn,” explained Andy.  “I left something there earlier in the evening.  I won’t be a minute getting it.”

In about half-an-hour, as they approached the hay barn where Andy had overheard the conversation between Daley and Murdock, he slipped down from the wagon.  He ran ahead, went up among the hay bales, found the coat containing the marble bag holding his little stock of money, and speedily rejoined the musician.

Hans finished his pipe and sank into a doze.  Andy could not sleep.  He had gone through too much excitement that day to readily compose himself.

He lay listening dreamily to the jolty clatter of the wagons, the shouts of the drivers, and the commotion of the animals in the menagerie cages.  Meanwhile he was thinking ardently of the next day.  It would decide his fate.  He felt hopeful that the show would take him on from the fact that Miss Stella Starr had required his presence the next morning.

“Hey,” spoke a sudden voice, “give us a chaw, will you?”

Andy with a start turned to face the boy he had noticed asleep.  The latter had rudely knocked his shoulder.  He had looked mean to Andy while slumbering.  He looked tough as he fixed his eyes on Andy, wide open.

“I don’t ‘chaw,’” said the latter.

“Teeth gone?” sneered the other.

“No, that’s why I don’t care to lose them,” retorted Andy.

“Huh!  Say, Snitzellbaum, loan me a little tobacco, will you?”

The speaker had nudged the musician.  The latter eyed him with little favor.

“You vas a kid,” he observed, stirring up.  “Vhen you grow up, maybe.  Not now.”