Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/84

 who had been in the seventh heaven of the imagination dreaming of circus sounds and sights and smells and memories, vaguely yet sharply discomforted for the rest of the morning.

"I 'm sick o' this town," he said, moodily. "I 'm goin' to be a trapper, and hunt Indians!"

But being joined by Lionel Clarence later in the day, they fell to studying the circus posters once more, while Lonely considerately explained to the Preacher's son how the otherwise inexplicable suppleness of the real circus acrobat was due, of course, to the fact that in early infancy he had his backbone cut out. And still later, in the stable-loft, they delighted Annie Eliza and three of her little girl friends with a terrific sword combat, in which Lonely, arrayed in swimming-trunks, magnificently bled to death—by means of a cow's bladder filled with raspberry vinegar, purloined from the unsuspecting Mrs. Sampson's cellar.

Indeed, as Lonely more and more realized that he was foredoomed to the companionship of Lionel Clarence, he took the Preacher's son more and more in hand, doing his best to make a man of him.