of the animal tent, presided over by uniformed ticket takers. Here and
there, in the gloomy background, stood the canvas and pole wagons,
shining in their wetness against the feeble light that oozed through
the opening between the sidewall and the edge of the flapping main
top, or glistening with sudden brightness in response to the passing
lantern or torch in the hand of a rubber-coated minion who "belonged
to the circus,"--a vast honor, no matter how lowly his position may
have been. Costume and baggage wagons, their white and gold glory
swallowed up in the maw of the night, stood backed up against the
dressing-tent off to the right. The horse tent beyond was even now
being lowered by shadowy, mystic figures who swore and shouted to each
other across spaces wide and spaces small without regulating the voice
to either effort. Horses, with their clanking trace-chains, in twos
and fours, slipped in and out of the shadows, drawing great vehicles
which rumbled and jarred with the noise peculiar to circus wagons:
tired, underfed horses that paid little heed to the curses or the
blows of the men who handled them, so accustomed were they to the
proddings of life.

And inside the big tent the band played merrily, as only a circus band
can play, jangling an accompaniment to the laughter and the shouts of
the delighted multitude sitting in the blue-boarded tiers about the
single ring with its earthen circumference, its sawdust carpet and its
dripping lights.

The smell of the thing! Who has ever forgotten it? The smell of the
sawdust, the smell of the gleaming lights, the smell of animals and
the smell of the canvas top! The smell of the damp handbills, the
programs and the bags of roasted peanuts! Incense! Never-to-be-
forgotten incense of our beautiful days!