“Well, this is a sell, if ever there was one,” murmured Tom, after looking into the various cages.

“I feel like going out to the butcher shop and buying something with which to feed that tiger,” answered Dick.  “He looks as if he hadn’t had a square meal for a week.”

“I’m going to give the monkeys some peanuts, that’s the best I can do for them,” put in Sam.

“If the ring show isn’t better than this we are stuck sure,” was Fred’s comment.

“Hullo, there’s that handbill man now,” cried Tom, as Giles Frozzler came into the tent.  “Won’t he laugh when he sees how Sam and Fred have been stuck?”

Two of the circus employees were near by and from their talk Fred learned that the showbill man was the proprietor of the circus.

“He certainly must be a one-horse fellow, or he wouldn’t be throwing out his own showbills,” said Sam, on hearing this.

Frozzler wore a soft hat, and as he stood near the monkey cage Tom threw some peanuts into the crown of the head covering.

Instantly the monkeys crowded forward.  One seized a peanut and another, to get the rest of the nuts, caught hold of the hat and pulled it into the cage.

“Hi! give me my hat!” roared Giles Frozzler, and put his hand into the cage to get the article in question.

The monkeys thought he had more peanuts and, being half starved, they grabbed his hand and pulled it this way and that, while one gave the man a severe nip.

“Oh! oh!” screamed the circus man.  “Let go my hand, you pesky rascal!”

“Hullo, dat monkey am got a limb dat don’t belong to no tree,” sang out Aleck.

“You shut your mouth!” growled Frozzler “Hi! give me my hat!” he went on to the monkeys.  But the animals paid no attention to him.  They ate up the peanuts as fast as they could and then one began an investigation by pulling the band from the hat.

The head covering was a new one, purchased but two days before, and to see it being destroyed made Giles Frozzler frantic.

“Give me that, you rascals!” he roared, and began to poke at the monkeys with a sharp stick.  But two of them caught the stick and, watching their chance, jerked it away from him.

“Hurrah! score one for the monks!” sang out Tom, and this made the crowd laugh.

“If you don’t shut up I’ll have you put out,” came angrily from Giles Frozzler.

“Why don’t you buy hats for the pool’ dear monkeys?” went on Tom.  “Then they wouldn’t want yours.”

“Oh, you keep quiet!”

“Those monkeys are about starved,” said Sam.  “Let us get up a subscription for their benefit.  I don’t believe they have had a square meal in a year.”

“All of the animals look starved,” said Dick, loudly.

“Dat am a fac’,” added Aleck.

“This is a bum show,” cried a burly farmer boy standing close by.  “Why, they have more animals nor this in a dime museum.”