“I’m going to be your nurse,” he told Midget.  “Suppose you sleep, too.”

“I can’t,” answered the little fellow.  “I’ve been asleep all day.  Wish I had another book, I’ve looked this one through a hundred times.”

“I could tell you some stories,” Andy suggested.  “Good ones.”

“Will you, say, will you?” pleaded the clown’s boy eagerly.

“You bet—­and famous ones.”

Andy kept his promise.  He ransacked his mind for the brightest stories he had ever read.  Never was there a more interested listener.  Andy talked in a low voice so as not to disturb the clown.

Midget seemed most to like the real stories of his own village life that Andy finally drifted into.

“That’s what I’d like,” he said, after Andy had told of some boyish adventures back at Fairview.

“Oh, I’m so tired of moving on—­all the time moving on!”

“Strange,” thought Andy, “and that’s just the kind of a life I’m trying to get into.”

Midget became so animated that Andy finally got him to tell some stories about circus life.  All that, however, was “shop talk” to the little performer, but Andy learned considerable from the keen-witted little fellow, who appeared to know as much about the ins and outs of show life as some veteran of the ring.

He enlightened his auditor greatly in the line of real circus slang.  Andy learned that in show vernacular clowns were “joys,” and other performers “kinkers.”  A pocket book was a “leather,” a hat a “lid,” a ticket a “fake,” an elephant a “bull.”  Lemonade was “juice,” eyes were “lamps,” candy peddlers were “butchers,” and the various tents “tops,” as, for instance:  “main top,” “cook top,” and the side shows were “kid tops.”

Finally little Midge went to sleep.  Andy woke him up each hour till daybreak to take his medicine.  After the last dose Andy went outside to stretch his limbs and get a mouthful of fresh air.

He saw men still tirelessly working here and there.  Some were housing the live stock, some unpacking seat stands, some fixing the banners on the main tent.

Andy did not go far from the clown’s tent.  It was fairly dawn.  Happening to glance towards the chandelier wagon he came to a dead stand-still, and stared.

“Hello!” said Andy with animation.  “There’s that Jim Tapp, and the man with him—­yes, it’s the fellow, Murdock, I saw with Daley in the old hay barn.”

As he stood gazing Tapp caught sight of him.  He started violently and spoke some quick words to his companion, pointing towards Andy.

“That’s the man who cut the trapeze,” murmured Andy.  “I’ll rouse the clown and tell him.  He’s a dangerous man to have lurking around.”

“Hey! hey!” called out Tapp at just that moment.

Both he and his companion started running towards Andy.  There was that in their bearing that warned Andy they meant him no good.  Andy did not pause.