human, would drive automobiles at the rate of a mile a minute on crowded
streets, run over people and never stop to help the wounded, but skip
away with a sneer, as much as to say: "What are you going to do about
it?"

The hippopotamus is like the lazy fat man that groans from force of
habit, sits down as though it was the last act of his life and only gets
up when the bell rings for meals, and he sweats blood for fear he will
lose his meal ticket and starve to death.

The seals are the clean-cut Baptists of the show, who believe in
immersion, and they have more brain than any animals in the show,
because they live on a fish diet, though they have a pneumonia cough
that makes you feel like sending for a doctor.

Gee, but last night when we thought spring had come and we could start
on the road pretty soon, the snow fell about a foot deep, and it was so
cold that all the animals howled all night, and shivered, and went on a
regular strike. We had to put blankets on them, and no one of them
seemed to be comfortable except the polar bears, the arctic foxes and
the fat woman. The other owners of the show thought it was a good time
to take the boa constrictor and pull an ulcerated tooth, 'cause he was
sort of dumpish, so pa and I helped hold the snake, which is about
twenty feet long.

Pa was up near the snake's head, and when the man with the forceps got
hold of the tooth and gave it a yank, the confounded snake come to and
began to stand on his head and thrash around, and pa dropped his hold
and started to climb the center pole, but he got caught in a gasoline
torch, and they had to turn a hose on pa, and he was awful scared,