Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/43

Rh pastry-cook's, and eat sandwiches, buns, and tarts, with extreme relish, due heedfulness, and the nicest discrimination, for we are limited as to money, and must get its worth, if we can.

"I could eat 'em all!" murmured Jack, on our first arrival, gazing fondly at a pyramid of jam tarts before him; but experience soon teaches him that his eye is decidedly larger than his stomach, and after a decent tuck-in he is satisfied. Having drunk our lemonade, we betake ourselves to the square, where the circus man is still sturdily beating his gong for the one o'clock performance, and mount the rickety steps, and go through the entrance to the red baize-covered seats that circle round the arena strewn with saw-dust. Although we know it all by heart, and just what is coming, what a thrill of excitement runs through us as we glance around us, at the eager faces of the poor folks and their children, seated in the lowest place; at the dissipated pieces of orange peel that are strewn hither and thither, suggestive remnants of the visits of those who could enjoy themselves without striving to be "genteel;" at the men with their brazen instruments, that will presently burst forth in a volume of sound more startling than dulcet; at our neighbours and their olive branches, who, like us, possess the upper seats in the synagogue, but who do not look at us, oh! dear no! The governor's sins are visited very fully upon our heads, and though he never goes abroad to encounter either good looks or bad, his sins will be visited on his luckless children, to the third and fourth generation.

And now the entertainment has begun; the pretty little girl in pink is taking her flying leaps through the hoops, and our hearts beat high with pride and delight as she clears them successfully, but a shiver runs through us as once she jumps short and falls. What a piteous quiver there is on the poor little painted face at the frowning, black-browed man who cracks the whip, scolds her in a low fierce voice; how we hate him, and would like to make him