Soon the faint music of the bands and the distant shriek of the calliope. The cortege was approaching. I braced myself for the trying experience. Some one shouted: “Look out for your horses! The elephants are right behind!” A policeman grabbed my bridle and I gazed at him, indulgently. I afraid! I who lived for years among them! I remembered the solemn joke of my former loved master, who used to cry, when the crowd wouldn’t make way: “Keep back! A drove of loose lions are coming!” Then there had been no further pushing; everybody scampered to sidewalk or doorstep. I think it was the third uniformed horseman who recalled in me their old acquaintance. He called the attention of the rider behind, was corroborated and then the word seemed to pass instantaneously back through the parade. Some reached over and patted my sides, others spoke words of encouragement and praise, and all had a look of profound veneration. I tried to look very spruce and sprightly through it all, but candor confesses that the attempt was a feeble imitation of the old days. My blood stirred for the first time since I was in the foremost circus ranks and I lamented bitterly. Oh, for the staunch, true leg of a few years ago and Mr. Melville on my back! Again we would make all other performances appear commonplace. The man I sought everywhere with my eyes was not in the procession and a fear possessed me that I might not be permitted to feel his hand and hear his voice. But it developed that this was farthest from my master’s thought. Up to the circus grounds we progressed and I ambled to the horse tents and stopped mechanically. I was living again in former glories. Then my eyes were blessed with the appearance of my old comrade. How he kissed and hugged me and looked me over critically and asked about my welfare! And how ineffably proud and happy I was when he insisted there was never my equal in all the requirements of the ring, and there was none to say him nay! I fancied there were tears in his eyes as we hopped away toward the farm, and I gave him a last beseeching plea for a return to the old life. My three sound legs are as gifted, I’ll warrant, as any four in the circus stables.