“Danny!” Jerry at last found his voice, and it rose in a forlorn wail.  “The ticket is mine!  Danny!”

Jerry had forgotten how easily Celia Jane could make the tears come whenever she liked, no matter if she didn’t really want to cry.  He would show that Celia Jane that she had gone too far this time.  He didn’t know what he would do, but turned to go to her.  As he did so, a crowd of persons going to the circus passed between them and when they had passed he saw Celia Jane running for home with Nora following at a slower pace.

“Why, what’s the matter, little boy?  Why are you crying?” he heard a man ask.

Jerry felt the hot tears of bitter disappointment coming and he did not want all those persons to see him crying.  So he turned and ran blindly around the big tent; when he was alone he flung himself down on the ground and sobbed out his grief, with face pressed into the grass.

Never, never, never would he forgive Celia Jane for her perfidy,—­nor Danny either for taking the ticket, when he knew that it had been given to Celia Jane because Jerry thought she was really crying because she wanted to see the circus.  He would really run away this time.  He would run away without going back to tell Mother ’Larkey and Kathleen and Nora good-by.

Now he would not get to see the elephants jumping the fence, nor the trapeze performers, nor the dancing pony.  Even the trained seals took on a halo of enchantment now that the magic ticket that was to open all those joys to him was irrevocably gone.

His sobbing rose in a renewed outburst, but even as he sobbed he felt something shake his foot very slightly.  He stopped sobbing so hard.  There was no further shaking of his foot and he again gave himself up to the bitterness of his grief.

Then there came a tug at his foot; it was shaken harder than before and then pulled.  Very much startled, Jerry sat up and found himself staring into a pair of twinkling yet sympathetic eyes and a face which was just as white as chalk, with very, very red lips.  It was a man, and he wore a white skullcap over his head and a white, loose sort of gown with blue dots all over it.

It was Whiteface, the clown, sitting on his heels right there in front of him!  That very surprising individual suddenly turned a handspring, and without standing up, kicked his heels together straight up into the air and then sat down in front of Jerry, leaned his head on his elbow and smiled with twinkling eyes, without uttering a word.

CHAPTER IX

CLOWN OF CLOWNS

Jerry was so surprised that he almost forgot that he had been cheated out of his ticket to the circus, and he stopped crying except for a long shuddering sob every now and then, though the tears stood on his cheeks.

The clown looked at him long and steadily; finally he made a little squeaky noise with his mouth, and then opened his lips as though laughing, but did not utter a sound.  His mouth seemed to keep broadening in a hearty laugh until Jerry thought it would really touch his ears.  It was such a good-natured grin and his eyes twinkled so that Jerry smiled ever so little.