Chapter 10 ROUND THE CAMPFIRE
Jeremy led the way out of the circus-ring. It had been well-lighted, and the night seemed very darkoutside the ring. They went over the field to where a large fire was burning, cleverly set about withstones. An enormous cooking-pot was hung over it, and a very, very nice smell came to their noses asthey went near.
Old Grandma was there, of course, and she began stirring the pot when she saw them. 'You've been along time in the ring,' she grumbled¹ to Grandad. 'Anything gone wrong?'
'No,' said Grandad, and sniffed² the air. 'I'm hungry. That smells good. Jeremy, help your Grandma.'
'Yes, Grandad,' said Jeremy, and took a pile of plates to the old lady, who at once began ladling outpieces of meat and potatoes and vegetables from the steaming pot. Old Grandad turned to Julian.
'Well - did you like our little rehearsal³?' he asked.
'Oh yes!' said Julian. 'I'm only sorry you didn't rehearse all the turns. I badly wanted to see theacrobats and the clowns. Are they here? I can't see them.'
'Oh yes - there's one clown over there - look - with Madelon, who had the horses,' said Grandad.
The children looked - and were very disappointed. 'Is he a clown?' said Dick, disbelievingly. 'Hedoesn't look a bit funny. He looks miserable⁵.'
'That's Monty all right,' said Grandad. 'He always looks like that out of the ring. He'll make youdouble up with laughter when the circus is on, he's a born clown - but a lot of clowns are like Montywhen they're not performing - not much to say for themselves, and looking miserable.
Winks⁶ is a bit livelier - that's him, pulling Madelon's hair. He'll get a smacked⁷ face in a minute, he's areal tease. There - I knew he'd get a clip on the ear!'
Winks went howling over to the children, boo-hooing most realistically. 'She smacked me!' he said.
'And she's got such p-p-p-pretty hair!'
The children couldn't help laughing. Mischief⁸ ran to the clown, jumped up on his shoulder andchattered comforting monkey-words into his ear. Charlie the

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