The last week has been the hardest on pa of any week since we have been out with the circus.  The trouble with pa is that he wants to be “Johnny on the spot,” as the boys say, and if anything breaks he volunteers to go to work and fix it, and if anybody is sick or disabled, he wants to take their place, as he says so he will learn everything about the circus, and be competent to run a show alone next year.

But it was a mean trick the principal owner of the show played on pa at Canton, O. You see John L. Sullivan used to do a boxing act with this show, years ago, and everybody likes John, and when he shows up where the show gives a performance he has the freedom of the whole place, and everybody about the show is ready to fall over themselves to do John L. a service.

Well, Sullivan showed up at Canton, and he went everywhere, all the forenoon, and met all the old timers, and at the afternoon performance he was awfully jolly.

John was standing beside the ring when the Japanese jugglers were juggling, and he leaned against a pole.  Pa came in from the menagerie tent, and he didn’t know Sullivan, and when he saw Sullivan holding the pole up, pa said to the boss proprietor that the fat man who was interfering with the show ought to be called down or put out.

The boss said to pa:  “You go take him by the ear and put him out,” and pa, who is as brave as lion, started for Sullivan, and the boss winked at the other circus men, and pa went up to Sullivan and took hold of John’s neck with both hands, and said:  “Come on out of here.”

Well, sir, we ought to have moving pictures of what followed.  Sullivan turned on pa, and growled just like a lion.  Then he took pa around the waist and held him up under his arm, and picked up a piece of board and slatted pa just as though pa was a child, and the audience just yelled, and pa called to the circus men for help, but they just laughed.

[Illustration:  John L. Slatted Pa Just as Though He Was a Child.]

Pa got a chance at the fat man and he hit him in the jaw, but it did not hurt Sullivan, only made him mad.  He took pa up by the collar and whirled him around until pa was dizzy, and then he started with him for the menagerie tent, and called to the boss canvasman:  “Bill, come on and tell me which is the hungriest lion, and I will feed him with this cold meat.”

Pa yelled, ’cause he thought he was in the hands of an escaped lunatic, and the circus hands came and took him away.  Then the owner told pa who Sullivan was, and pa almost fainted.  But finally, after breathing hard for awhile, pa went up to Sullivan and shook his hand, and said:  “Mr. Sullivan, you must excuse me.  If I had known you were the great John L., I would not have licked you.”  Sullivan looked at pa and said:  “Well, you are a wonder, old man, and you did do me up,” and pa and Sullivan became great friends.  Since then pa is pretty chesty, ’cause the circus men point him out to the jays as the man who whipped John L. Sullivan.