"That's just the way with Samuel," said Mrs. Treat, as if she would offer some apology for the almost greedy way in which her husband accepted the invitation; "he's always thinking so much about eating that I'm afraid he'll begin to fat up, and then I shall have to support both of us."
"Now, my dear"--and Mr. Treat used a tone of mild reproof--"why should you have such ideas, and why express them before our friend, Mr. Tyler? I've eaten considerable, perhaps, at times; but during ten years you have never seen me grow an ounce the fatter, and surely I have grown some leaner in that time."
"Yes, yes, Sammy, I know it, and you shall eat all you can get, only try not to show that you think so much about it." Then, turning to Toby, she said, "He's such a trial, Sam is. We'll go to see your uncle, Toby, and we should be very glad to do so even if we wasn't going for dinner."
"Ben an' me will come 'round when it's time to go," said Toby, and then, in a hesitating way, he added, "Abner's out here--he's a cripple that lives out to the poor-farm--an' he never saw a circus or anything. Can't I bring him in here a minute before you open the show?"
"Of course you can, Toby, my dear, and you may bring all your friends. We'll give an exhibition especially for them. We haven't got a sword-swallower this year, and the albino children that you used to know have had to leave the business, because albinos got so plenty they couldn't earn their salt; but we've got a new snake-charmer, and a man without legs, and a bearded lady, so--"
"So that our entertainment is quite as morally effective and instructively entertaining as ever," said Mr. Treat, interrupting his wife to speak a good word for the exhibition.
Toby ran out quickly, that he might not delay the regular business any longer than was absolutely necessary; and at the very entrance of the tent, looking at the pictures in wonder that almost amounted to awe, he found Abner with his partners, and about a dozen other boys.
"Come right in quick, fellers," said Toby, breathlessly, "an' you can see the whole show before it commences."
The invitation was no sooner given than accepted; and in a twinkling every one of those boys was inside the tent, looking at the skeleton and the fat woman as though they had been old acquaintances.