Toby Tyler: or, Ten Weeks with a Circus. Otis James

don't think that is his name. I only call him so, 'cause he looks so much like a feller I know who is named Stubbs."

      This satisfied the skeleton that this Mr. Stubbs must be some one attached to the show, and he asked,

      "Has Job been whipping you?"

      "No; Ben, the driver on the wagon where I ride, told him not to do that again; but he hain't going to let me have any supper, 'cause I was so slow about my work – though I wasn't slow; I only talked to Mr. Stubbs when there wasn't anybody round his cage."

      "Sam! Sam! Sam-u-el!"

      This name, which was shouted twice in a quick, loud voice, and the third time in a slow manner, ending almost in a screech, did not come from either Toby or the skeleton, but from an enormously large woman, dressed in a gaudy red-and-black dress, cut very short, and with low neck and an apology for sleeves, who had just come out from the tent whereon the picture of the Living Skeleton hung.

      "Samuel," she screamed again, "come inside this minute, or you'll catch your death o' cold, an' I shall have you wheezin' around with the phthisic all night. Come in, Sam-u-el."

      "That's her," said the skeleton to Toby, as he pointed his thumb in the direction of the fat woman, but paying no attention to the outcry she was making – "that's my wife Lilly, an' she's the Fat Woman of the show. She's always yellin' after me that way the minute I get out for a little fresh air, an' she's always sayin' just the same thing. Bless you, I never have the phthisic, but she does awful; an' I s'pose 'cause she's so large she can't feel all over her, an' thinks it's me that has it."

      "Is – is all that – is that your wife?" stammered Toby, in astonishment, as he looked at the enormously fat woman who stood in the tent door, and then at the wonderfully thin man who sat beside him.

      "Yes, that's her," said the skeleton. "She weighs pretty nigh four hundred, though of course the show cards says it's over six hundred, an' she earns almost as much money as I do. Of course she can't get so much, for skeletons is much scarcer than fat folks; but we make a pretty good thing travellin' together."

      "Sam-u-el!" again came the cry from the fat woman, "are you never coming in?"

      "Not yet, my angel," said the skeleton, placidly, as he crossed one thin leg over the other and looked calmly at her. "Come here an' see Job's new boy."

      "Your imprudence is wearin' me away so that I sha'n't be worth five dollars a week to any circus," she said, impatiently, at the same time coming toward the candy stand quite as rapidly as her very great size would admit.

      "This is my wife Lilly – Mrs. Treat," said the skeleton, with a proud wave of his hand, as he rose from his seat and gazed admiringly at her. "This is my flower – my queen, Mr. – Mr. – "

      "Tyler," said Toby, supplying the name which the skeleton – or Mr. Treat, as Toby now learned his name was – did not know; "Tyler is my name – Toby Tyler."

      "Why, what a little chap you are!" said Mrs. Treat, paying no attention to the awkward little bend of the head which Toby intended for a bow. "How small he is, Samuel!"

      "Yes," said the skeleton, reflectively, as he looked Toby over from head to foot, as if he were mentally trying to calculate exactly how many inches high he was, "he is small; but he's got all the world before him to grow in, an' if he only eats enough – There, that reminds me. Job isn't going to give him any supper, because he didn't work hard enough."

      "He won't, won't he?" exclaimed the large lady, savagely. "Oh, he's a precious one, he is; an' some day I shall just give him a good shakin'-up, that's what I'll do. I get all out of patience with that man's ugliness."

      "An' she'll do just what she says," said the skeleton to Toby, with an admiring shake of the head. "That woman hain't afraid of anybody, an' I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she did give Job a pretty rough time."