Oh, if I had only died when I was young, I never would have witnessed that sight.  The band played, “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night,” and pa’s crowd of white trash marched around the big outside ring shouting, “Bryan!  Bryan!  What’s the matter with Bryan!” and the audience got up on its hind legs and yelled—­that is the white folks did—­and then we marched around the other way, and yelled, “Teddy is the stuff!  Teddy is the stuff!” and the negroes in the audience yelled.  Then my crowd met pa’s crowd right by the middle ring, where the elephants had formed the pyramid that closes their act, and the Japanese jugglers were in the right-hand ring, and a party of female tumblers, with low-necked stockings, were standing at attention in the left-hand ring.

There was no intention of having a riot, but when pa yelled, “What’s the matter with Bryan?” a negro in my crowd yelled, “That’s what’s the matter with Bryan,” and he hit pa over the head with his Chinese lantern, loaded with a warm hornets’ nest as big as a football, which had taken fire from the candle.  Pa dropped his lantern and began to fight hornets, and then all the white trash in pa’s bunch rushed up and began to whack my poor downtrodden negroes with their Chinese lanterns.  Of course, my fellows couldn’t stand still and be mauled, and the candles had warmed our hornets’ nests so the hornets were crawling out to see what was the trouble.  Then every negro whacked a white man with a hornets’ nest and the audience fairly went wild with excitement.

[Illustration:  He Hit Pa Over the Head with His Chinese Lanterns.]

The hornets got busy and went for the elephants and the Japanese jugglers, and they stampeded like they never met a hornet before.

[Illustration:  The Stampeded Like They Never Met a Hornet Before.]

The female tumblers found hornets on their stockings, and everywhere, and they gave a female war whoop and rushed for the dressing room.  The elephants got stung and they came down off their pyramid and went out to the menagerie tent trumpeting, and switching their trunks.  The negroes and the white politicians were getting into a race war, so the circus hands rushed in and separated them, and my negroes found that the fetty I had them rub on themselves did not keep the hornets from stinging them, so they stampeded.

Then the hornets began to go for the audience, and the women yelled murder and pulled down their dresses to cover their shoes, and the men got stung and the whole audience stampeded into the open air.

Then I met pa, and he was a sight, and I never got stung once.  The managers tried to get the band to play some tune that would soothe and hold the audience till an explanation could be made, but somebody had thrown a hornets’ nest under the band seats and the horn players got stung on the lips so they couldn’t play, and the band all lit out for a beer garden.  Before I realized it the show was over, and a detective