But by far the largest assemblage was drawn to a stout acrobat in faded tights, which might have been washed at some remote era, bedizened with spangles that revealed a faint tradition of glitter. He had an amazing flow of impudent 'patter,' this acrobat, and let it spout uninterruptedly as he flung up little metal rings, in quick succession, high in the air, catching them as they fell on a tin cone, strapped to his forehead, in the fashion of a unicorn's horn. Sometimes he missed them, and they slapped with a crack on his skull, and rolled off behind by a bald channel, which frequent misadventure of the kind had worn in his hair. But the spectators were as highly amused when he failed as when he succeeded--indeed, more so, if the truth must be told--for had they not a hit and a miss together? When the cone was encircled with rings, he flung up a monster potato, impaling it on the spike as it descended, amid the acclamations of his admirers. 'Come along, Pat,' said O'Hara; 'here is something more in our line,' as he passed to another group, before which the owner of a troop of educated dogs and cats was performing. 'This is M'sieu Rigolo,' cried the showman, as he placed one chair reversed on another, and taking a poor cat, that looked as if it couldn't get up an emotion at a family of mice round a Stilton cheese, balanced its claws consecutively lengthwise and crosswise on the upstanding legs. When the cat had been sufficiently tortured it was dismissed, to its evident satisfaction, to the basket which served as green-room to the perambulating theatre. 'Present yourself, M'sieu Romulus,' cried the showman, and a poodle of remarkably subdued mien reluctantly entered the arena, much as a slave who was devoted to the lions might have done in the old Roman times. M'sieu Romulus had not the boldness of his illustrious namesake of antiquity, but he had more than his sagacity. His strong point lay in detecting the most amorous man, the most beautiful lady, the greatest idler and so-forth in the surrounding company. The showman, putting a card in his mouth, asked him to point out such a one. Romulus stood up in the attitude dogs are wont when asked to beg, moved carefully round and finally trotted off in the way he should go, and dropped the card at the feet of the chosen person. Romulus was dismissed in his turn to the green-room, and the showman called for Mademoiselle. The call was responded to by one of the saddest short-eared dogs ever seen, girt round the middle with a miniature crinoline which made the creature a grotesque caricature of a woman in the prevailing fashion as she hopped into the circle painfully on her hind-legs.