You and I, reader, looking on at this with gaze unglamoured by the eternal, fleeting spirit of youth, might have noted in the carping light of higher criticism that the oriental trappings had been but poor shoddy stuffs to begin with, and were now all torn and dingy and shedding their tarnished spangles; might have noted that the man-eating tigers seemed strangely bored with life, and that the venomous serpents draped upon the form of the lady snake-charmer were languid, not to say torpid, to a degree that gave the lady snake-charmer the appearance rather of a female suspender pedler, carrying her wares hung over her shoulders. We might have observed further had we been so minded--as probably we should--that the Queen of Sheba bore somewhat a weatherbeaten look and held a quite common-appearing cotton umbrella with a bone handle over her regal head; that the East-Indian mahout of the elephant herd needed a shave, and that there were mud-stained overalls and brogan shoes showing plainly beneath the flowing robes of the Arabian camel-driver. We might even have guessed that the biggest tableau car was no more than a ticket wagon in thin disguise, and that the yapping which proceeded from the largest closed cage indicated the presence merely of a troupe of uneasy performing poodles. But to the transported vision of the little sick boy in the little brown house there were no flaws in it anywhere--it was all too splendid for words, and so he spoke no words at all as it wound on by. The lurching shoulders of the elephants had gone over the hill beyond and on down, the sacred ox of India had passed ambling from sight, the glass establishment of the snake-charmer was passing, and January and the down wagon and the steam calliope were right in front of the Hammersmith house, when something happened on ahead, and for a half minute or so there was a slowing-up and a closing-up and a halting of everything. Although, of course, the rear guard didn't know it for the time being, the halt was occasioned by the fact that when the band wagon reached the far end of Clay Street, with the orchard trees looming dead ahead, the sheriff, riding on the front seat of the band wagon, gave an order. The band-wagon driver instantly took up the slack of the reins that flowed through his fingers in layers, so that they stopped right in front of Judge Priest's house, where Judge Priest stood leaning on his gate. The sheriff made a sort of saluting motion of his fingers against the brim of his black slouch hat. “Accordin' to orders, Your Honor,” he stated from his lofty perch. At this there spoke up another man, the third and furthermost upon the wide seat of the band wagon, and this third man was no less a personage than Daniel P. Silver himself, and he was as near to bursting with bottled rage as any man could well be and still remain whole, and he was as hoarse as a frog from futile swearing.