“Yes,” answered Ben.

“A real truly one?” Bunny wanted to know.

“You’ll see in a minute,” Ben told her.  “All ready now, Signore Allegretti!  We are going to have you do some tricks with your trained bear!”

With that Ben pulled aside the curtain, and there stood a real, live, truly, big brown bear, and with him was a man wearing a red cap.  The man had hold of a chain that was fastened to a leather muzzle on the bear’s nose.

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” cried the children.

“Why, he’s real!” gasped Sue.

“Of course he’s real!” laughed Ben.

“He’s just like the bear the man had out in front of grandpa’s house last week, doing tricks,” said Bunny.

A man had gone past Grandpa Brown’s house with a trained bear, and he had stopped to make the big, shaggy animal do some tricks.  Bunny and Sue had given the man pennies, and Grandma Brown gave him something to eat.  The man gave part of his bread and cake to the bear.

“This is the same man,” said Ben.  “When I saw him, I thought he and his bear would be just the thing for our circus.  So I asked him to come back to-day and give us a little show on his own account.  And here he is.  He came last night and stayed in the barn so no one would see him until it was time for the circus.  I wanted him for a surprise.”

“Well, he is a surprise,” said Bunny.  “I didn’t think it was a real bear.”

“Let’s see him do some tricks!” called a boy.

“All right.  He do tricks for you,” promised the man with the red cap.  “Come, Alonzo.  Make fun for the children.  Show dem how you laugh!”

The bear, who was named Alonzo, opened his mouth very wide, and made some funny noises.  I suppose that was as near to laughing as a bear could come.

[Illustration:  THERE STOOD A REAL, LIVE, TRULY, BIG BROWN BEAR

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus.  Page 211.]

“Now turn a somersault!” cried the bear’s trainer, and the big, shaggy creature did—­a slow, easy somersault.  Then he did other tricks, such as marching like a soldier, with a stick for a gun, and he pretended to kiss his master.  Then the bear danced—­at least his master called it dancing, though of course a big, heavy bear can not dance very fast.

“Now climb a pole!” cried the bear’s master.  “Climb a pole for the little children, and they will give us pennies to buy buns.”

There was a big pole in the middle of the animal tent, and the bear trainer led the animal toward it.

“I make him climb dis!” he said.

“Is the pole strong enough to hold him?” asked Grandpa Brown.  “The bear is pretty heavy, I think.”

“Oh, dat pole hold him!  I make Alonzo climb very easy,” the Italian bear-trainer said.  “Up you go, Alonzo!”

The bear stuck his long sharp claws in the pole.  It was part of a tree trunk, for the regular tent pole had been broken when the tent was carried away in the flood.