The next day at Sunday School Sube declined to give the Golden Text, and recited in its stead a few verses from the Book of Job to which his teacher, Miss Lester, took choleric exception. He was immediately sent home; but when Miss Lester stopped in to explain matters to his mother he had not yet arrived. As he sauntered in half an hour later he met with a very warm reception and was placed on jail-limits for the remainder of the day, being forbidden to leave the premises. But this entailed no great hardship, for he spent the afternoon in the barn printing posters and making preparations for the circus which he was planning to launch on the morrow. Monday was a red-letter day for the youth living in that part of the town known as the East Village. The lucky few who were associated with the management were engaged in building the "ampatheater" and fashioning the drop curtain from a quantity of ex-fertilizer sacks that were Gizzard Tobin's contribution to the enterprise; the others were kept busy knocking the show, and at the same time getting together the price of admission. At about two o'clock in the afternoon a great hubbub was heard in the streets. It sounded at first as if a newspaper extra had arrived; but a careful listener would have been able to make out that the cry was, "Cir-cus!" instead of, "Ux-try!" Then came the additional announcement that the big show would start at two-thirty sharp in the main tent upstairs in Canes' barn. The barkers darted from place to place with such amazing rapidity and shouted so lustily that it seemed as if there must be nearer forty of them than four. Indeed their cries appeared to come from all sides at once. Nor was the rapidity of their movements accelerated by their circus costumes, for they were all in full dress; and their upturned trousers would insist on coming down over their feet and tripping them up from time to time. It is possible that this may account for the disreputable condition in which two or three fathers in the neighborhood found their evening clothes the next time they had occasion to wear them. Although, without exception, the boys in the affected families denied any knowledge of the matter. When the time-piece on the shelf in Canes' kitchen reached two-thirty o'clock the "ampatheater" was crowded to capacity, and although several late comers were assured by the man at the door that there were plenty of "reserved seats for every man, woman and child, one and all, admitted to the big tent," they found on going inside that there was standing room only. "Plen-ty of room! Plen-ty of room!" drawled the loud nasal voice at the door. "Do not loi-ter about the entrance, please! Either step in, or step aside! Gangway, please! Gang-way! Do not interfere with our pa-trons--"