‘Our next move was to Middlesborough, where a very laughable incident occurred. A party of us ferried over to Stockton one day, and went into a public-house there for refreshment. Circus men are always courted and sought after, as soldiers are in a place where they are only occasionally seen; and, as soon as we were recognised by the Stockton men in the room as belonging to the circus, there was a great disposition shown to treat us, and to get into conversation with us. Well, a short time afterwards, one of those men came over to Middlesborough, to see the circus again, and, after the performance, he went into a public-house where he recognized Sam Sault, a gymnast from Manchester, who had lately joined us, and insisted upon treating him. Sam had no objection to be treated, and the Stockton man was elated with the opportunity of showing that he was acquainted with a circus man. So one glass followed another until the Stockton man became, all at once, helplessly drunk. Sam, who retained the use of his limbs, and some glimmering of reason, good-naturedly took his drunken friend to his lodging to save him from being turned out of the public-house, and then locked up by the police. He had no sooner reached his lodgings, and helped the drunken man up the stairs, however, than he felt a doubt as to the safety of his purse; and, on immediately thrusting his hand into his pocket, he found that it was gone. He reflected as well as he was able, and came to the conclusion that he must have left it on the parlour table at the public-house. Depositing his helpless companion upon the sofa, he ran down-stairs, and rushed off to the tavern, where, by great good fortune, he found his purse on the chair on which he had been sitting, where he had placed it, it seems, when he thought he had returned it to his pocket. ‘While he was at the public-house Joe Ridley and I, and my partner, who lodged in the same house with Sam Sault, returned to our lodging, and found the drunken man asleep on the sofa, smelling horribly of gin and tobacco smoke, and snoring like a fat hog. We looked at the fellow in surprise, wondering who he was, and how he came to be there. Neither of us recognized him as any one we had seen before. Then the question was raised,—What should we do with him. “Throw him out of the window,” says Joe Ridley. “Take him down into the yard and pump on him,” says Fred. “No, let us paint his face,” says I. So I got some carmine, and Fred got some burnt cork, and we each painted him to our own fancy till he looked like an Ojibbeway in his war-paint. By that time Sam Sault got back from the public-house, and found us laughing heartily at the queer figure cut by the recumbent Stocktonian. ‘“Oh, if he is a friend of yours, we’ll wipe it off,” says I, when Sam had explained how the man came to be there.