The free exhibition on the little platform outside the side-show tent
had all the fascination of the unknown for Jerry and Chris and Celia
Jane and Nora, but not for Danny, who had been to the vaudeville theater
twice and who knew that this outside sample never could come up to the
glories to be revealed inside for fifty cents, or a dollar and a half
for reserved seats in the boxes, and was critical.

The dancing girl in short skirts and the man with the beard which fell
to his feet and the very red-faced snake charmer merely whetted his
appetite for what was to come, while to Jerry and the rest of the
Mullarkey children it was a substantial part of the feast itself.

The free show seemed to Jerry not to have much more than started when
the raucous voice of the ballyhoo announced:

"This, ladies and gents, concludes the free show. The main show will not
begin for half an hour, thirty minutes--just time enough to see the side
show, the world's greatest congress of freaks and monstrosities. See the
sword-swallower from India to whom a steel sword is no more than a
string of spaghetti to an Italian. Kelilah, the famous dancer of the
Nile, whose graceful contortions have delighted the eyes and moved the
hearts of kings. See Major Wee-Wee, the smallest man in the world, no
bigger than a two-year-old baby, and Tom Morgan, the giant who stands
seven feet three inches in his stocking feet. They are all there--every
kind of human freak from the living skeleton to the fat woman who weighs
four hundred pounds. The price is the same to one and all--twenty-five
cents, only a quarter of a dollar. This way and get your tickets for the
side show. There is just time to take in all its wonders before the big
show in the main tent begins."