take the children to. Wednesday would be a good day. Suppose we
go on Wednesday. Oh, and pleats are being worn again, with rows
of deep braid," etc.

What the others thought I know not; what they said, if they said
anything, I did not comprehend. For me the house was bursting,
walls seemed to cramp and to stifle, the roof was jumping and
lifting. Escape was the imperative thing--to escape into the
open air, to shake off bricks and mortar, and to wander in the
unfrequented places of the earth, the more properly to take in
the passion and the promise of the giddy situation.

Nature seemed prim and staid that day and the globe gave no
hint that it was flying round a circus ring of its own. Could
they really be true, I wondered, all those bewildering things I
had heard tell of circuses? Did long-tailed ponies really walk
on their hind-legs and fire off pistols? Was it humanly possible
for clowns to perform one-half of the bewitching drolleries
recorded in history? And how, oh, how dare I venture to believe
that, from off the backs of creamy Arab steeds, ladies of more
than earthly beauty discharged themselves through paper hoops?
No, it was not altogether possible, there must have been some
exaggeration. Still, I would be content with very little, I
would take a low percentage--a very small proportion of the
circus myth would more than satisfy me. But again, even
supposing that history were, once in a way, no liar, could it be
that I myself was really fated to look upon this thing in the
flesh and to live through it, to survive the rapture? No, it was
altogether too much. Something was bound to happen, one of us
would develop measles, the world would blow up with a loud