Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/102

90 I'll let you ride on one of the elephants. You can feed the monkeys, and tickle the hippopotamus, if you like. Poor boy," in lower tones, "so young, too."

"Say," demanded Dick, standing up, "do you think I'm crazy?"

"There! there!" repeated the manager, in that soothing tone he had suddenly adopted. "Please don't get excited. It's the worst thing in the world for you."

Dick glanced up at the man in uniform. Then a smile came over his face that had assumed a rather angry look.

"Why, Marshall Hinckly!" he exclaimed. "How did you come to be here?"

"Dick Hamilton!" exclaimed the officer in surprise, "I didn't know you at first. You see the authorities in Parkertown, being a little short-handed, asked me to help out on circus day, and so I came over from Hamilton Corners. But what in the name of green turtles is the trouble here?"

"I don't know," replied the millionaire's son. "I merely offered to guarantee this manager a thousand dollars if he would bring his circus to Hamilton Corners, and he acts as though he thought I was crazy."

"And isn't he?" burst out the manager, less frightened, now that an officer of the law was present. "Isn't he, Mr. Policeman? The idea of a boy like him offering to make out a check for