JIMMY RUNS AWAY
It was a ham and beef shop, and in Jimmy's cold and hungry condition the meat pies and sausages and hams in the window looked very tempting.
'You just wait here a few moments,' said Coote, as he came to a standstill, 'and mind it's no use your thinking o' running away, because I can run too.' With that he entered the ham and beef shop, leaving Jimmy outside alone on the pavement. Perhaps Jimmy would never have thought of running away if the man had not suggested it; but he was so frightened that he felt it would be better to do anything rather than go with the policeman. You know that sometimes a boy does not stay to consider what is really the best, and Jimmy did not stay to think now. Whilst he saw Coote talking to the shopman in the white apron, through the window, he suddenly turned to make a dash across the road.
'Look out!' cried a man, and Jimmy only just escaped being run over by a one-horse omnibus. He dodged the horse, however, and running towards the opposite pavement, he knocked against an old woman with a basket. The basket grazed his left arm, and to judge by what she said he must have hurt the woman a good deal. But Jimmy did not wait to hear all she had to say; he only thought of getting away from Coote, and ran on and on without the slightest notion where he was going. Up one street and down another the boy ran, often looking behind to see whether he was being followed, and at last stopping altogether, simply because he could not run any farther. He sat down on the kerb-stone, and then he saw for the first time that it had begun to rain quite fast.
It was a great relief to know that Coote must have taken a wrong direction, for if the policeman had taken the right one he would have caught Jimmy by this time. Still he did not intend to sit there many minutes in case Coote should be following him after all, so a few minutes later Jimmy got up again and walked on quickly.
He felt very miserable; it must be past his usual bed-time, and yet he had nowhere to sleep. He wished he were safely at Chesterham; and he made up his mind that he would never fall asleep in a waiting-room again as long as he lived.
Until now Jimmy had been making his way along streets, but very soon he saw that there were houses only on one side of the way. He had in fact come to what looked, as well as he could see in the dark, like a small common, with furze bushes growing on it, and a pond by the roadside.
But a little farther on, Jimmy fancied he heard a band playing, and then he saw what appeared to be an enormous tent, and there were lights burning near, and curious shadowy things which he could not make out at all.
Jimmy was always an inquisitive boy, and now he almost forgot his troubles in his wish to find out what was happening on the common. So he walked towards the large round tent, and the band sounded more loudly every moment.
By one part of the tent stood a cart, and in this a man was shouting at the top of his voice. And around the cart a crowd had gathered, chiefly of rather shabbily-dressed people, and one or two of them stepped out every minute or so and went inside an opening in the tent, where a stout woman stood to take their money.
Near the cart was a large picture, and Jimmy stared at it with a great deal of interest. The picture represented a lion and a clown, and the clown's head was inside the lion's mouth; whilst a little way off a very small clown, of about Jimmy's own age, stood laughing.
Jimmy had always an immense liking for lions, and also for clowns, and when they both came together and the head of the one happened to be in the mouth of the other, the temptation was almost more than he could resist.
'Now, ladies and gentlemen, walk up, walk up!' cried the man in the cart. 'All the wonders of the world now on view. Now's the time, the very last night; walk up, ladies and gentlemen, walk up.'
Jimmy thought that he really might do worse than to walk up. For one thing he would be able to sit down inside the tent, and for another he could take shelter from the rain, which now was falling fast. He put his hand into his pocket to feel for his purse, and recollected that he had still two shillings and twopence left out of Aunt Selina's half-crown.
'How much is it?' he asked, going towards the stout woman at the opening.
'Well,' she answered, 'you can go in for twopence, and you can have a first-class seat for sixpence. But if you ask me, a young gent like you'd sooner pay a shilling.'
'Yes, I think I should,' said Jimmy proudly; and, taking out a shilling, he gave it to the woman and at once entered the tent.
There were so few persons in the best seats that a great many of those in the cheaper ones turned to look at Jimmy as he walked in. But Jimmy was quite unaware of this, for no sooner had he sat down than he began to laugh as if he had not a trouble in the world. He forgot that he had nowhere to sleep, he forgot the red-faced policeman, he even forgot that he ought to be at Chesterham.
It was the clown who made Jimmy laugh. He was a little man with a tall, pointed white felt hat like a dunce's cap; he wore the usual clown's dress, and generally kept his hands in his pockets as if he were a school-boy.
A girl in a green velvet riding-habit had just finished a wonderful performance on horseback, and after she had kissed her hands to the people a good many times, she jumped off the horse, which began to trot round the ring alone. The clown was evidently trying to repeat her performance on his own account, but each time he tried to mount the horse it trotted faster, and the clown always fell on his back in the sawdust. Nothing could be more comical than the way he got up, as if he were hurt very much indeed, and rubbed himself; unless, indeed, it was his alarm when the two elephants were brought into the ring and he jumped over the barrier close to Jimmy in the front seats. Jimmy felt a little disappointed not to see the clown put his head into the lion's mouth, but then there were plenty of things to make up for this; and besides, Jimmy was beginning to feel really very sleepy again, when the band played 'Rule Britannia' out of tune, and all the people rose to leave the tent.
As it became empty, Jimmy began to feel very wretched again. He wondered where he should sleep, and he could hear that it was raining faster than ever outside.
Why shouldn't he wait until everybody else had gone and then lie down on one of the seats and sleep where he was? Of course he had never slept in such a place before, and he did not much like the idea of sleeping there now, but then he had nowhere else to go, and at any rate it would be better than going outside in the rain.
So Jimmy made up his mind to stay where he was, and he would have been lying down and perhaps asleep in another moment, for he was very tired, when he saw the clown enter the tent.
He had taken off his pointed hat, and had put on a long loose overcoat over his clown's dress. As he had been laughing or making fun all the time he was in the ring, Jimmy thought that he never did anything else; but the clown looked quite solemn now, and the paint on his face had become smudged after getting wet outside in the rain.
'Hullo!' he exclaimed on seeing Jimmy. 'What are you doing here?'
'Nothing,' answered the boy.
'Suppose you do it outside!'
'But I shall get so wet outside,' said Jimmy.
'Lor! Where's your nurse?' asked the clown.
'I haven't got one,' cried Jimmy, a little indignantly. 'I go to school.'
'Be quick then and go,' said the clown.
'But I've nowhere to go,' answered Jimmy sadly, 'and I don't know where anybody is.'
'Mean to say they've gone away and left you?' asked the clown.
'They haven't been here.'
'Oh, so you came to the show by yourself?' said the clown.
'Yes,' replied Jimmy.
'Well,' was the answer, 'you're a nice young party'; and the clown sat down on the barrier. 'Come now,' he said, 'suppose you tell us all about it.'
So, in a very sleepy voice, Jimmy began to tell the clown his story. He told him how he had fallen asleep in the waiting-room, and where he had been going to; but he did not say anything about Coote, because he felt afraid that the clown might send for the policeman, who would, after all, put him into prison for travelling in the wrong train.