did not fall. The donkey ran, and stopped quickly. Bud held on. Then the donkey's feet twinkled--it seemed to Bud in the very top of the tent--and Bud slid off the animal's neck to the ring. The clown brought the boy his hat, and stood over him as he rose. Bud laughed stupidly into the chalked face of the clown, who handed Bud a dollar, remarking in a low voice, "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick." [Illustration] [Illustration: "_Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick_."] What passed in the ring as Bud left it, bedraggled and dusty, did not interest him. He brushed himself as he went. The band was playing madly, and the young woman in the stiff skirts was standing by her horse ready to mount. The crowd did not stop laughing; Bud inclined his head to dust his knickerbockers, and then in a tragic instant he saw what was convulsing the multitude with laughter. The outer seam of the right leg of his velveteen breeches was gone, and a brown leg was winking in and out from the flapping garment as he walked. Wildly he gathered the parted garment, and it seemed to him that he never would cover the ground between the ring and the benches. In the course of several aeons--which the other boys measured by fleeting minutes--the wave of shame that covered Bud subsided. Pins bound up the wounds in his clothes. He drew a natural breath, and was able to join the mob which howled down the man who announced the concert. After that the inexorable minutes flew by until the performance ended. In the menagerie tent Bud and his friends looked thirstily upon the cool, pink "schooners" of lemonade, and finally, when they had spent a few blissful moments with the monkeys and had enjoyed a last, long, lingering look at the elephants, they dragged themselves unwillingly away into the commonplace of sunshine and trees and blue sky. Only the romantic touch of the side-show banners and the wonder of the gilded wagons assured them that their memories of the passing hour were not empty dreams.