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.