Hen another thing was, where to have the circus. Of course
it was simply hopeless
to think of a tent, and a boy's circus was
very glad to get a barn. The boy whose father owned the barn had to get it for the circus without his father
knowing it; and just as likely as not his mother would hear the noise and come out and break the whole thing up while you were
in the very middle of it. Then there were all sorts of anxieties and
perplexities about the dress. You could do something by turning your roundabout inside out, and rolling
your trousers up as far as they would go; but what a fellow wanted to make him a
real circus actor was a long pair of white cotton stockings, and I never knew a fellow that got
a pair; I heard of many a fellow who was said to have got a pair; but when you came down to the fact, they vanished like ghosts when you try to verify them. I believe
the fellows always expected to get them out of a bureau-drawer or the clothes-line
at home, but failed. I
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