"How do you know they are?" asked Danny. "Just tell me how you know
anything about it."

"I don't know, but I know," Jerry said, feeling all his obstinacy
aroused by Danny's air of conscious superiority.

"There, you just said you didn't know," Celia Jane interposed, going to
her elder brother's aid, as she always did in a dispute with Jerry.

"I didn't neither," asseverated Jerry.

"You said you didn't know," insisted Celia Jane.

"I don't know how I know," said Jerry, "but I know el'funts have little
tails--like a rope."

"Have you ever been to a circus?" asked Chris.

"Not that I remember."

"Have you ever seen a el'funt?" pursued Danny.

"N-n-no, but it kind of seems as if I almost had."

"I guess you'd know if you had seen a el'funt, wouldn't you?"

"Y-y-yes," responded Jerry doubtfully.

"Then if you ain't ever been to a circus or seen a el'funt, I guess you
don't know what you are talking about."