One day, when Mappo had finished doing his tricks for the day, and had been given a whole, ripe, yellow banana for himself, as a treat for being good and smart, the little monkey wandered off to another part of the circus barn.  Mappo, unlike the other monkeys, was not kept in a cage, or chained up.

As Mappo was walking along he came underneath a cage, and from over his head came a loud roar.

“A lion!” cried Mappo, springing away.  “He’ll get me!”

In the jungle he and his brothers and sisters had been taught to run and hide when a lion roared, and, for the moment, Mappo did just as he had been used to doing in the jungle.  Then he sort of laughed to himself, in a way monkeys have, and he said: 

“Ha!  Ha!  That lion can’t get at me!  He is locked in his cage.  I’m not afraid.”

But, just the same, Mappo ran over on the other side of the circus barn, and watched the lion from there.

The “King of Beasts,” as he is called, though a lion is often no braver that any other animal, paced back and forth in his cage.  He peered out between the bars, and tried to break them with his big paws.  But he could not.  Now and then the lion would utter a deep, loud roar, that seemed to shake the very ground.  I suppose he roared as he had done in the jungle, when he wanted to let the other animals know he was coming.  A lion must be very proud of his roar.

“Well, you can’t get me, anyhow,” thought Mappo.  “You are safe in your cage, and I am glad of it.”

“Well, how are you to-day, Tum Tum?” asked Mappo, of the jolly elephant.

“Tired.  Very tired!” exclaimed Tum Tum.

“What makes you tired?” asked the monkey.

“Doing so many tricks,” the elephant answered.  “And you know I am a big, heavy chap, and it tires me to run fast around the ring.  But never mind, we will soon be out of here, and on a journey.”

“Where are we going?” asked Mappo.

“To travel from town to town, as all circuses do.  We shall soon be living in tents,” the elephant answered.

“I’ll like that,” said Mappo.  “I am getting rather tired of staying here so long.”

And, surely enough, a few days later, the circus started out “on the road,” as it is called.  The big red, golden and green wagons were drawn by many horses, and rumbled up hill and down.  In the wagons the animals and tents and other things, all of which go to make up a circus, were carried.

One day, after a lot of traveling, part of which was by train, Mappo and the other animals came to a place where a big, white tent was set up in a wide, green field.  The tent had been set up in the night, ready for the circus.

“Ah!  Now our real circus work will begin!” said Tum Tum.  And so it did.

The bands began to play, and when the tent was filled with boys and girls, and their papas and mammas, and grandpas and grandmas, there was a grand procession of all the performers.  The elephants, of which Tum Tum was one, also marched around, as did lots of the ponies and dogs.