Juvenile Fairview was set on fire anew with the circus fever. Andy's
rope-walking feat and double somersault act from desk to desk that
morning had resulted, getting him into the trouble of his life. It
furthermore had interrupted other performances on the programme listed
for later on that very day.

Andy's head had been full of the circus since he had seen its first
poster at a cross-roads. He could never pass a heap of sawdust without
cutting a caper.

In the spelling contest, he had stupefied his fellow students by nimbly
rattling over such words as "megatherian," "stupendous," "zoological
aggregation," and the like.

One of his sums covered the number of yards a clown could cover in a
given time on a handspring basis. He had shocked the schoolmaster by
handing in an essay on "The Art of Bareback Riding."

Andy had tried every acrobatic trick he had seen depicted in the glowing
advance sheets announcing the circus. To repeated efforts in this
direction his admiring schoolmates had continually incited him.

He had tried the double somersault in the schoolroom that morning. Andy
had made a famous success of the experiment, but with the direful result
of smashing a desk, and subsequent expulsion.

Thinking over all this, Andy realized that the beginning and end of all
his troubles was his irrepressible tendency towards acrobatic
performances.