the news in the morning paper.

Dressed for her trip to the circus, Anne looked like a girl in her
teens--white skirt and short green coat--stout sports shoes and white
hat. She wore her silver beads, and Christopher said, "I'm not sure that
I would if I were you."

"Why not?"

"In such a crowd."

But she kept them on.

They motored to the circus grounds, and came in out of the white glare
to the cool dimness of the tent as if they had dived from the sun-bright
surface of the sea. But there the resemblance ceased. Here was no
silence, but blatant noise--roar and chatter and shriek, the beat of the
tom-tom, the thin piping of a flute--the crash of a band. But it was the
thin piping which Christopher followed, guiding Anne with his hand on
her arm.

Following the plaintive note, they came at last to the snake-charmer--an
old man in a white turban. The snakes were in a covered basket. He sat
with his feet under him and piped.

Christopher spoke to him in a strange tongue. The piping broke off
abruptly and the man answered with eagerness. There was a quick
interchange of phrases.

"I know his village," Christopher said; "he is going to show you his