“Where will I find Mr. Sparling?”  
“In the doghouse.”
 
“Where’s that?”
 
“Out back of the ticket wagon¹. It’s a little A tent, and we call it the boss’s doghouse, because it’s only big enough to hold a couple of St. Bernards.”
 
“Oh! What does he want of me?”
 
“Ask him,” grinned the attendant, who, it developed, was an usher² in the reserved-seat section. “He don’t tell us fellows his business. Say, that was a great stunt³ you did with Emperor.”
 
“Oh, I don’t know.”
 
“I do. There’s the doghouse over there. See it?”
 
“Yes, thank you.”
 
The attendant leaving him, Phil walked on alone to Mr. Sparling’s private office, for such was the use to which he put the little tent that the usher had called the “doghouse.”
 
“I wonder what he can want of me?” mused⁴ Phil. “Probably he wants to thank me for stopping that pony⁵. I hope he doesn’t. I don’t like to be thanked. And it wasn’t much of anything that I did anyway. Maybe he’s going to—but what’s the use of guessing?”
 
The lad stepped up to the tent, the flaps of which were closed. He stretched out his hand to knock, then grinned sheepishly.
 
“I forgot you couldn’t knock at a tent door. I wonder how visitors announce themselves, anyway.”
 
His toe, at that moment, chanced to touch the tent pole and that gave him an idea. Phil tapped against the pole with his foot.
 
“Come in!” bellowed⁶ the voice of the owner of the show.
 
Phil entered, hat in hand. At the moment the owner was busily engaged with a pile of bills for merchandise recently purchased at the local stores, and he neither looked up nor spoke⁷.
 
Phil stood quietly waiting, noting amusedly the stern scowl⁸ that appeared to be part of Mr. Sparling’s natural expression.
 
“Well, what do you want?” he demanded, with disconcerting suddenness.
 
“I—I was told that you had sent for me, that you wanted to see me,” began the lad, with a show of diffidence.
 
“So I did, so I did.”
 
The showman hitched⁹ his camp chair about so he could get a better look at his visitor. He studied Phil from head to foot with his usual scowl.
 
“Sit down!”
 
“On the ground, sir?”
 
“Ground? No, of course not. Where’s that chair? Oh, my lazy tent man didn’t open it. I’ll fire him the first place we get to where he won’t be likely to starve to death. I hear you’ve been trying to put my show out of business.”
 
“I wasn’t aware of it, sir,” replied Phil, looking squarely at his questioner. “Perhaps I was not wholly blameless in attaching myself to Emperor.”
 
“Huh!” grunted¹⁰ Mr. Sparling, but whether or not it was a grunt¹¹ of disapproval¹², Phil could not determine.
 
“So you’re not living at home?”
 
“I have no home now, sir.”
 
“Just so, just so. Brought up in refined surroundings, parents dead, crabbed¹³ old uncle turned you out of doors for reasons best known to himself—”
 
Phil was amazed.
 
“You seem to know all about me, sir.”
 
“Of course. It’s my business to know something about everything. I ought to thank you for getting Mrs. Sparling out of that mix-up this morning, but I’ll let her do that for herself. She wants to see you after the performance.”
 
“I don’t like to be thanked, Mr. Sparling, though I should like to know Mrs. Sparling,” said Phil boldly.
 
“Neither do I, neither do I. Emperor has gone daffy over you. What did you feed him?”
 
“Some sugar and peanuts. That was all.”
 
“Huh! You ought to be a showman.”
 
“I have always wanted to be, Mr. Sparling.”
 
“Oh, you have, eh?”
 
“Yes, sir.”
 
“Well, why don’t you?”
 
“I have never had the opportunity.”
 
“You mean you’ve never looked for an opportunity. There are always opportunities for everything, but we have to go after them. You’ve been going after them today for the first time, and you’ve nailed one of them clear up to the splice¹⁴ of the center pole. Understand?”
 
“Not entirely¹⁵, sir.”
 
“Well, do you want to join out with the Great Sparling Combined Shows, or don’t you?”
 
“You mean—I join the—the—”
 
Mr. Sparling was observing him narrowly.
 
“I said, would you like to join our show?”
 
“I should like it better than anything else in the world.”
 
“Sign this contract, then,” snapped the showman, thrusting a paper toward Phil Forrest, at the same time dipping a pen in the ink bottle and handing it to him.
 
“You will allow me to read it first, will you not?”
 
“Good! That’s the way I like to hear a boy talk. Shows he’s got some sense besides what he’s learned in books at some—well, never mind.”
 
“What—what is this, ten dollars a week?” gasped¹⁶ Phil, scarcely able to believe his eyes as he looked at the paper.
 
“That’s what the contract says, doesn’t it?”
 
“Yes, sir.”
 
“Then, that’s what it is. Traveling expenses and feed included. You are an easy keeper?”
 
“Well, I don’t eat quite as much as a horse, if that’s what you mean,” laughed Phil.
 
“Huh!”
 
After reading the contract through, the lad affixed¹⁷ his signature to it with trembling hand. It was almost too good to be true.
 
“Thank you, sir,” he said, laying the paper before Mr. Sparling.
 
“And now, my lad,” added the showman more mildly, “let me give you some advice. Some folks look upon circus people as rough and intemperate¹⁹. That day’s past. When a man gets bad habits he’s of no further use in the circus business. He closes mighty²⁰ quick. Remember that.”
 
“Yes, sir. You need not worry about my getting into any such trouble.”
 
“I don’t, or I wouldn’t take you. And another thing: Don’t get it into your head, as a good many show people do, that you know more about running the business than the boss does. He might not agree with you. It’s a bad thing to disagree with the boss, eh?”
 
“I understand, sir.”
 
“You’d better.”
 
“What do you want me to do? I don’t know what I can do to earn that salary, but I am willing to work at whatever you may put me to—”
 
“That’s the talk. I was waiting for you to come to that. But leave the matter to me. You’ll have a lot of things to do, after you get your bearings and I find out what you can do best. As it is, you have earned your salary for the first season whether you do anything else or not. You saved the big cat and you............