MORE ADVENTURE.

The crowd standing around the fakir were so astonished by his sudden movement that for the instant no one but the old countryman attempted to stop him.

The farmer caught the rascal by the arm, but was quickly flung off and into the crowd on his back, where he lay, too dazed even to speak.

“He’s going to rob that man!” cried Neka.

There was no time to say more. To the astonishment of the boy and his companions, the scamp tore along close to where they were standing.

Neka was the first to act in this emergency. Leaping forward, he put out his foot, and down went the fakir flat on his face in the dirt of the country road.

“Wot did yer do dat fer?” he growled, as he struggled up and gasped for the wind that had been knocked out of him. “Do yer want me ter hit yer, sonny?”

He attempted to go on, but Neka caught his arm, and a second later Longfellow Wadsworth and Bindley also had their hands on him.

By this time the crowd was in pursuit, the countryman coming up in the rear, puffing and blowing, for he was old and feeble.

“Hold him! He is a thief! Don’t let him git away from ye!” he yelled.

“We have him,” replied the elocutionist. “Is there an officer around?”

“Wot yer goin’ ter arrest me fer?” asked the fakir, brazenly. “I wasn’t doin’ nuthin’, only going ter git change fer that old gent.”

“He was going to run off with my five-dollar bill,” puffed the old farmer.

“What’s the trouble here?” demanded an officer, coming up, club in hand.

Matters were quickly explained. The five-dollar bill was given back to the old countryman, and he refused to make a complaint against the fakir.

The scamp was about to decamp when Neka told the officer to hold him.

“He is wanted for trying to steal a bicycle from Harry Lardale, son of the county clerk,” he explained. “I am sure Mr. Lardale will lodge a complaint. Besides that, I think he is a fellow who knocked me unconscious on the road and robbed me a few days ago.”

“I’ll take him in if you’ll come along and make a complaint,” replied the officer, briefly.

Neka agreed to this, and soon the entire party were on their way to the Carmine police station.

On his way the fakir begged hard to be let go. He was closely watched by Neka, and to a good purpose, for as they neared the jail the boy saw him attempt to throw something away.

“What is that?” he cried. “The prisoner threw it away.”

An examination was made and the object was found. It proved to be an oddly shaped bit of ivory, carved and polished.

“My pocket-piece!” cried Neka. “Old Jerry Brown gave me that,” he explained to Longfellow Wadsworth. “This proves that this chap is the one who assaulted me.”

“No doubt you are right.”

“What else did he have belonging to you?” asked the officer, becoming interested.

“A couple of dollars in money, and a pocket-knife, an old one, with a brass handle, marked ‘Neka.’”

By this time the station was reached. A complaint was made, and the prisoner was examined. The brass-handled knife was found in a back pocket, also fifteen dollars and a half.

Neka said if the money and knife were returned to him he would not make a complaint, not wishing to wait around Carmine until the trial should come off.

The thief agreed to restore the stolen things, and did so. Then he was locked up until Harry Lardale could be heard from.

It may be said here that the bicyclist appeared against him the very next day, and that the scamp was tried and convicted, and sent to prison for one year.

When Neka and Longfellow Wadsworth returned to their hotel the elocutionist asked the boy to show him the pocket-piece he had obtained from old Jerry Brown.

“An odd bit of a keepsake, truly,” he mused, as he turned it over.

“I think a good deal of it,” said Neka. “Jerry thought a good deal of it, too, and only gave it to me when he thought he could not live any longer.”

“Had he anything to say about it when he presented it?”

“No, excepting that I should keep it, and not let Daniel Bambo take it away from me, because it was a charmed piece, and would some day bring me great luck.”

“Ah!”

The elocutionist said no more, but the bit of ivory and what the dead juggler had said about it set him to thinking deeply.

“You take good care of that bit of ivory, Neka,” he remarked, the next morning. “I’m a bit superstitious myself, and I believe that carries with it your whole luck in the future.”

The boy did not altogether understand what he meant. He wanted to ask several questions, but Longfellow Wadsworth cut him short.

“I’ve been looking over the ground,” he went on, “and I don’t know but what we had better try our luck at Cambron to-morrow, and lay off to-night. There is a charity fair going on at Cambron, but perhaps the town is big and rich enough to turn out for both affairs. I don’t know of any other town to strike in this section.”

“Cambron always was a good show town,” said Bindley, who was taking breakfast with them. “You won’t lose anything by going there.”

“The circus certainly did very well there,” mused Neka. “We might try it. We can’t expect first-class stands every night.”

“In the meanwhile, I will wire ahead and see what we can do at Washingtonville,” went on Longfellow Wadsworth. “We may as well be making dates ahead.”

Neka laughed.

“We’ll soon want an advance agent and all that sort of thing,” he said.

“Certainly,” rejoined Bindley. “Your route will have to be mapped out at least a month or six weeks ahead. You know some shows book ahead the whole season, but then they are the big guns.”

A day of rest after the trying work at the fair was welcome to all hands. They took the coach for Cambron, arriving there just before dinner.

As Longfellow Wadsworth had said, there was a charity fair in progress there. It was held in an armory directly in the rear of the hall in which shows were given, the two buildings being so close that the back windows of each were scarcely five feet apart.

When they went to hire the hall they were told they could do but little. Yet, undaunted, they went ahead, paid the rent, and got out their bills.

At this the managers of the charity fair grew very bitter, and were loud in their denunciation of the “tramp actors,” as they termed our friends.

“We’ll boycott ’em, and get our friends to do the same,” they said.

So angry was the head of the committee that he had a banner painted, which read as follows:

“Rally to the fair, everybody! Don’t go to any fake show, but spend your money for the benefit of the hospital! Leave tramp actors to themselves!”

This banner was tacked on a wide spreader attached to a stick, and a man was put on the street to carry it around, especially in the vicinity of the show hall.

Neka laughed when he saw the banner, but Longfellow Wadsworth and Bindley were furious.

“I’ll fix ’em!” stormed the elocutionist. “I’ll give ’em a banner that will make ’em howl.”

“I wouldn’t raise a quarrel,” said Neka. “It will do us no good. Rather try to make them ashamed of themselves.”

“But how?” asked Bindley.

“Get up a banner praising the fair, and say we’ll be there ourselves to-night.”

“Ha! ha! a good idea!”

The banner was made, and Bindley went to work on it. When finished, it read as follows:

“Go to the fair by all means, and spend all the money you can afford in the good cause. Afterward attend the great moral exhibition of the Neka-Wadsworth Specialty Company at Radley’s Hall. To-night Professor Neka will give a free exhibition of one of his celebrated fire tricks in front of the armory. Be sure to go to the fair early, so you can see him. Remember, the company perform in Cambron to-morrow night only!”

“That will mix matters up,” said Neka. “I wonder what the manager of the fair will say to that?”

The banner was turned over to an old man, and carted around the principal streets, and in front of the armory.

At first the committee having the fair in charge were angry. Then they talked matters over, and came to the conclusion they were not treating the “actor folks” just right. Half an hour later their banner was taken in, and it did not appear again.