It was a worthy ambition--infinitely higher than that of boys who want to do something great, or clever, or strong. As to those who want to be rich--for their ambition I have an utter contempt. How gladly would I drive that meanness out of any boy’s heart! To fall in with the work of the glad creator, and help him in it--that is the only ambition worth having. It may not look a grand thing to do it in a caravan, but it takes the mind of Christ to do it anywhere. Behind the bear, closing the procession, came a stoutish, good-tempered-looking man, in a small spring-cart, drawn by a small pony: he was the earthly owner of that caged life, with all its gathered discomforts. Clare lifted his cap as he passed him--a politeness of which the man took no notice, because the boy was ragged. The moment he was past, Clare fell in behind as one of the procession. He was prudent enough, however, not to go so near as to look intrusive. When he had followed thus for a mile or two, he saw, by signs patent to every wanderer, that they were coming near a town. Before reaching it, however, they arrived at a spot where the hedges receded from the road, leaving a little green sward on the sides of it, and there the long line came to a halt. The menagerie had, the day before, been exhibited at a fair, and was now on its way to another, to be held the next day in the town they were approaching: they had made the halt in order to prepare their entrance. To let a part of their treasure be seen, was the best way to rouse desire after what was yet hidden: they were going, therefore, to take out an animal or two more to walk in parade. Clare sat down at a little distance, and wondered what was coming next. Experience of tramps had made the men suspicious, and it may be they disliked having their proceedings watched by anybody; but, happily for Clare, it was the master himself who came up to him, not without something of menace in his bearing. The boy was never afraid, and hope started up full grown as the man approached. He rose and took off his cap--a very ready action with Clare, which sprung from pure politeness, and from nothing either selfish or cringing. But the man put his own interpretation on the civility. “What are you hanging about here for?” he said rudely. Now Clare had a perfect right to answer, had he so pleased, that he was on the king’s highway, where no one had a right to interfere with him. But he had the habit--he could not help it; it was natural to him--of thinking first of the other party’s side of a question--a rare gift, which served him better than he knew. For the other may be in the right, and it is an ugly thing to interfere with any man’s right; while a man’s own rights are never so much good to him as when he waives them.