my good friend's wishes. The major part of my task has been a matter
of arrangement, of joining up flats, as they say in the theatre, of
translation, of editing, of winnowing, as far as my fallible judgment can
decide, the chaff from the grain in his narrative, and of relating facts
which have come within the horizon of my own personal experience.

I begin therefore at the very beginning.

Many a year ago, when the world, myself included, was young, I knew a
circus. This does not mean that I knew it from the wooden benches outside
the ring. I knew it behind the scenes. I was on terms of intimacy with the
most motley crowd it has been my good fortune to meet. It was a famous
French circus of the classical type that has by now, I fear me, passed
away. Its _haute ecole_ was its pride, and it demanded for its
_premiere equestrienne_ the homage due to the great artists of the
world. Bernhardt of the Comedie Francaise--I think she was still there in
those far-off days, Patti of the Opera and Mlle Renee Saint-Maur of the
Cirque Rocambeau were three stars of equal magnitude. The circus toured
through France from year's end to year's end. It pitched its tent--what
else could it do, seeing that municipal ineptitude provided no building
wherein could be run chariot races of six horses abreast? But the tent, in
my youthful eyes, confused by the naphtha glares and the violent
shadows cast on the many tiers of pink faces, loomed as vast as a Roman
amphitheatre. It was a noble tent, a palace of a tent, the auditorium being
but an inconsiderable section. There was stabling for fifty horses.
There were decent dressing-rooms. There was a green-room, with a wooden,
practicable bar running along one end, and a wizened, grizzled, old barman
behind it who supplied your wants from the contents of a myriad bottles
ranged in perfect order in some obscure nook beneath the counter. They did
things in the great manner in the Cirque Rocambeau. It visited none but