journey on without me over the continent day after day and year after year. . . . I felt I would be content to become one of them, to share irrevocably their rough, roving life.
***
11 a.m.—The "boss" had promised "Jacko" a medal as champion sleeper. He travelled in charge of the drove of hospital horses, and slept the journey through, lying flat on his face on the back of the old ring-mare, with a horse-rug thrown over his head.
When, this morning at the start, Jim hauled him unceremoniously to the ground, and set him to drive the last tableau-team, he screwed up his tiny bloodshot eyes, and swore he would be revenged.
He was supposed to be running after Maggie, and Joe, whenever he found him hiding in the hay in the elephant-tent, used to thrash him and throw him outside.
We were all sitting at breakfast, when, to our surprise, the stunted, impish creature sauntered in, puffing ostentatiously at a cigar-stump.
"Well, Jacko, did yer 'ave a good sleep on the road?" Maggie asked maliciously.
"What d'ye think I did?" he asked, his wizened face grinning from side to side. "Why I've bin an' knocked a bloomin' 'ouse down."
And so, it appeared, he had. They had hustled him down the long hill into the town, and he had swung the waggon with a crash into a cottage, built of rubble and mud, and had knocked a huge hole in the wall.
"A lot of old women were sittin' at breakfast. Lord! 'ow they did jump and squeal," Jacko continued, with pride.
