"I don't think I could," Jerry protested. "I know it would fall off."

"Not if you practise enough," returned Danny. "Besides, that's all
that's left for you. I guess if one seal can throw it to another and
that seal catch it on its nose like it does in the picture, you ought to
be able to _balance_ it on _your_ nose. All you'll have to do is to lie
on your stummick on the ground and throw back your head."

So it was decided that Jerry should play the part of a trained seal in
their circus. Mother 'Larkey got out a ball of carpet rags, when they
reached home, for Jerry to balance on his nose in place of a balloon,
and gave Danny an old green wrapper, just ready to be cut up into carpet
rags, out of which to make his elephant costume. She made Chris a clown
costume out of a piece of old white skirt upon which she sewed large
dots of red and blue cloth.

The two following days were busy ones for Jerry if not quite so happy as
for the Mullarkey children. He had made up his mind, after practising
until his back, chest and neck ached from throwing his head back to
balance the ball of carpet rags on his nose, that he didn't like trained
seals and wasn't going to care to be one at the circus. Chris's clown
costume was finished and looked very much like a white union suit miles
too big for him.

Nora had become quite proficient at walking the tight rope, stretched
between two poles in the yard about ten feet apart and two feet from the
ground, _if_ she remembered to keep one end of her balancing pole
touching the ground all the time. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Celia
Jane didn't need any costume to play the part of the dancing pony except