There lies Billy, the pig, the most human pig that ever breathed, adored
by Ben Flint, who, not having given the beast one second's pain in all its
beatific life, was, in his turn, loved by the pig as only a few men are
loved by a dog--and there, sitting on the pig's powerful withers, his blue
smock full of wilted daisies, is little eight-year-old tow-headed Andrew
Lackaday making a daisy chain, which eventually he twines round the
animal's semi-protesting snout.

Yes. There is the picture. It is full summer. We have lunched, Madame
and Ben and Andrew and I, at the little cafe restaurant at the near-by
straggling end of the town. At other tables, other aristocratic members of
the troupe. The humbler have cooked their food in the vague precincts of
the circus. We have returned to all that Ben and his wife know as home. It
is one o'clock. At two, matinee. An hour of blissful ease. We are in the
shade of the great tent; but the air is full of the heavy odour of the dust
and the flowers and the herbs of the South, and of the pungent smell of the
long row of canvas stables.

I call little Andrew. He dismounts from Billy the pig, and, insolent brat,
screws an imaginary eyeglass into his eye, which he contrives to keep
contorted, and assuming a supercilious expression and a languid manner,
struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby
giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its
burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him
across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily till Madame cries
out:

"But cease, Andre. You are making Monsieur too hot."