Usually when the caravan bounded into a township, with the little bells on the horses jingling gaily, and Madame Marve, dressed in a somewhat brief and too youthful costume, enthroned on the box seat, playing a rattling tune on the cornet, the people turned out in crowds to welcome it, and the children swarmed, eager for a peep at the hidden mysteries.

It was different at Rabbit township.

The caravan dashed into Rabbit with the customary velocity and the regulation rattle, but Rabbit did not trouble itself.

“Blarst my eyes!” growled the Professor, when the camp was made; “even the dogs didn’t bark!  What sort of a boneyard is this we’ve struck?”

As a matter of fact, Rabbit was a moribund township.  The rabbits had eaten up the surrounding country, and now they were beginning to eat up the township.  So voracious was bunny that when a man went missing it was gloomily concluded that the rabbits had eaten him, and the township took no action, subsiding in despair.  Most of the people had left.  Those who remained did so because they couldn’t afford to shift, or because they were too lazy to go.

Professor Thunder had been doing good business, and his expenses were light.  He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in trying to amuse Rabbit township.  Rabbit was incapable of being amused.

There remained an open hotel at Rabbit, and the Professor called on its proprietor to gather useful information concerning the inhabitants, their tastes and habits.  He found Schmitz, the portly proprietor, sprawling on his own bar counter, embracing a bottle of squareface with a loving hug.  The two arms of Schmitz caressed the bottle, his cheek was pressed amorously to the cork.  The eye of Schmitz was small and round, and seemed to be filled with pink cobweb, his hair was in a state of tumult, and was full of chips, suggesting that he had recently slept on the wood heap.  Schmitz had a fierce, red moustache, that looked as if it had been trimmed on a block with an adze.

The publican blinked stupidly at the world-famous showman for a moment, trying to pick him out from a number of unnatural curiosities careering before him, and then he said, decisively:  “Ged oud of mein ’ous’.”

“My dear fellow,” said the Professor, urbanely, “I suppose you will serve me with some little refreshment?”

“Refreshmend?” muttered the landlord.  “Refreshmend?” His intellect struggled to grasp the situation.  Suddenly it became luminous.  “Nein!” he yelled.  “I vill nod you mid refreshmend serve!  Nein!  I keep him all for meinseluf.  Ged oud!”

“But, Mr. Schmitz,” expostulated the Professor.

“Ged oud of mein ‘ous’.  I know vot you want, ain’t id?  You want to buy mein liquer.  Veil, I don’d sell some liquer to nopody.  Der ain’t sufficiency for mieinseluf.  Ged oud!  Tam you, ged oud kvick!” Schmitz caught up a bottle in quick rage, and dashed it at Professor Thunder.