Well, ’twas a mixed-up mess.  That was the end of the parade.  Next minute I was racing across country with the whole town and the Uncle Tommers astern of me, and a string of dogs stretched out ahead fur’s you could see.  ’Way up in the lead was Booth Montague and the bloodhounds, and away aft I could hear Jonadab yelling:  “Stop thief!”

’Twas lively while it lasted, but it didn’t last long.  There was a little hill at the end of the field, and where the poet dove over ’tother side of it the bloodhounds all but had him.  Afore I got to the top of the rise I heard the awfullest powwow going on in the holler, and thinks I:  “They’re eating him alive!”

But they wan’t.  When I hove in sight Montague was setting up on the ground at the foot of the sand bank he’d fell into, and the two hounds was rolling over him, lapping his face and going on as if he was their grandpa jest home from sea with his wages in his pocket.  And round them, in a double ring, was all the town dogs, crazy mad, and barking and snarling, but scared to go any closer.

In a minute more the folks begun to arrive; boys first, then girls and men, and then the women.  Marks came trotting up, pounding the donkey with his umbrella.

“Here, Lion!  Here, Tige!” he yells.  “Quit it!  Let him alone!” Then he looks at Montague, and his jaw kind of drops.

“Why—­why, Hank!” he says.

A tall, lean critter, in a black tail coat and a yaller vest and lavender pants, comes puffing up.  He was the manager, we found out afterward.

“Have they bit him?” says he.  Then he done just the same as Marks; his mouth opened and his eyes stuck out.  “Hank Schmults, by the living jingo!” says he.

Booth Montague looks at the two of ’em kind of sick and lonesome.  “Hello, Barney!  How are you, Sullivan?” he says.

I thought ’twas about time for me to get prominent.  I stepped up, and was just going to say something when somebody cuts in ahead of me.

“Hum!” says a voice, a woman’s voice, and tolerable crisp and vinegary.  “Hum! it’s you, is it?  I’ve been looking for you!”

’Twas Little Eva in the pony cart.  Her lovely posy hat was hanging on the back of her neck, her gold hair had slipped back so’s you could see the black under it, and her beautiful red cheeks was kind of streaky.  She looked some older and likewise mad.

“Hum!” says she, getting out of the cart.  “It’s you, is it, Hank Schmults?  Well, p’r’aps you’ll tell me where you’ve been for the last two weeks?  What do you mean by running away and leaving your—­”

Montague interrupted her.  “Hold on, Maggie, hold on!” he begs.  “Don’t make a row here.  It’s all a mistake; I’ll explain it to you all right.  Now, please—­”

“Explain!” hollers Eva, kind of curling up her fingers and moving toward him.  “Explain, will you?  Why, you miserable, low-down—­”