“You ain’t lost your tongue, have you?” cried Danny.

“Maybe the cat’s got it,” said Celia Jane, following as usual her elder brother’s lead and laughing at her own wit.

“What you starin’ at so hard, Jerry?” called Chris.

Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a moment from the dazzling poster.  Curiosity soon got the better of Chris and he started to walk back.

“El’funt!” shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster.  His shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the billboard.

“The circus!” cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine years.  “The circus is coming to town!” He threw himself on the grass by Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into his hand.

“I don’t want it,” said Jerry.

“Aw, take it, Jerry.  I didn’t mean to eat so much of it, honest I didn’t.  I just wanted to tease you.”  He closed Jerry’s fingers around the core.

“It doesn’t say the circus is coming,” Nora observed, pointing to some lettering in one corner of the poster.  Nora was nearly eight years old and proud of her ability to read print, if the words weren’t too big,—­an ability shared by none of the others except Danny.

“It does, too!” contradicted Celia Jane, wrinkling up her nose preparatory to crying with disappointment if the circus were not coming.  “There’s some writin’ on it.”

“What does it say, Danny?” eagerly asked Jerry, going close to the billboard as though that might help him to make out what was printed on it.  “Ain’t it coming?”

“Read it quick, Danny!  Please!  I can’t wait!” cried Celia Jane.

Thus besought, Danny read somewhat haltingly, for the “writin’” was in queerly formed letters, these words which are known to all children: 

    Ask your mother for fifty cents
    To see the elephant jump the fence,
    He jumped so high he hit the sky
    And never came down till the Fourth of July.

“Is that all?” asked Celia Jane, very much disappointed.

“Didn’t I just read it to you?” was Danny’s rejoinder.

“Then the circus ain’t comin’, is it?” said Chris.

“It don’t say so,” replied Nora.  “It don’t say whether it’s comin’ or whether it ain’t.”

“It doesn’t say it’s a circus,” said Danny.  “It might be just an ‘ad’ for—­for any old thing.”

“For a menajeree?” asked Celia Jane.

“Or chewin’ gum?” suggested Chris.

“Or something,” affirmed Danny decisively.

Jerry forgot to be disappointed about the circus not coming, for he was bothered about what it was that the picture of the elephant made him almost think of.  He tried and tried with all his might to think what it was, but didn’t succeed.  Then something almost like faint music seemed to hum in his ears and his lips unconsciously formed a word, “Oh, queen,” he murmured.