"Let's go on a tramp, Charlie," said Robert, after they had eaten dinner.
"I'm with you," said Charlie. "Where shall we go?"
"Oh, well, we'll go across the fields. Perhaps we'll go into the woods. Anything for fun."
The two boys set out about two o'clock, and after reaching the borders of the village took a path across the fields.
"I wish nuts were ripe, Rob," said Charlie. "We'd have a nice time knocking them off the trees. Do you remember last fall up in Maine?"
"Yes, but it's June now, and we can't have any fun of that kind. However, we can have a good time. Do you see those bars?"
Robert ran swiftly, and cleared the bars without touching them. Charlie followed, but, being a shorter boy, felt obliged to let his hand rest on the upper bar. They were accustomed to springing from the ring upon the backs of horses, and practice had made that easy to them which was difficult for ordinary boys.
"I say, Charlie," said Robert, thoughtfully, as they subsided into a walk, "what are you going to do when you are a man?"
"I don't want to be a circus rider all my life."
"I should think you would. Ain't you the Boy Wonder?"
"I shan't be the Boy Wonder when I'm twenty-five years old."
"You can't make so much money any other way."
"Perhaps not; but money isn't everything I think of. I would like to get a better education and settle down to some regular business."
"There's more fun in circus riding," said Charlie, who was not as thoughtful a boy as his companion.
"I don't see much fun in it," said Robert. "It is exciting, I know, but it's dangerous. Any day, if your nerves are not steady, you are likely to fall and break a limb, and then good-by to your riding."
"I think there is. What could we do if we had to give up riding?"
"Oh, something would turn up," said Charlie, who was of an easy disposition. "We might take tickets or keep the candy stand."
"That wouldn't be very good employment for a man. No, Charlie, I think this will be my last season at circus riding."
"I am saving money so that, at the end of the season, I can have something to keep me while I am looking round."
"You don't say so, Rob! How much have you saved up?"
"I've got about two hundred dollars saved up already."
"I had no idea you were so rich," he said. "Why, I haven't got five dollars."