queen' means, what did you say 'Oh, queen' for?" persisted Danny.

"I don't know," Jerry replied, at a loss. Then he brightened, "I might have heard it, sometime."

"Maybe it was somebody's name?" suggested Nora.

"I don't know."

"It's an Irish name, if it's got an O in front of it, and you said 'O'Queen'," Celia Jane stated.

"Did you ever know an Irish man or Irish woman by the name of 'O'Queen'?" questioned Danny.

"I don't know," repeated Jerry, his lips twisting in real distress at not being able to think what could have made him say a thing like that.

"You don't know anything, do you?" asked Danny in the teasing, affronting tone he sometimes adopted with Jerry.

"I do, too," affirmed Jerry, his lips tightening.

"You don't know how old you are," said Celia Jane, following Danny's lead.

"Do you know what your name is?" asked Danny.

"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry, hot within at this making fun of his name which always seemed to give Danny so much enjoyment.

"Jerry Elbow," said Danny, putting so much sarcasm into pronouncing the name as to make it almost unbelievable that it could be a name. "What kind of a name is that—Elbow! Might as well be Neck—or Foot."

"It's just as good as Danny Mullarkey!" declared Jerry.

"There's nothing the matter with your name, Jerry," interposed Nora. "Eat the core of your apple," she continued, pointing at it, forgotten, but still clutched tightly in his fist.

"I don't want the old core," said Jerry and threw it against the billboard.

Celia Jane ran after it, grabbed it eagerly, wiped it off on her skirt and popped it into her mouth.

"Celia Jane!" called Nora, "Don't you eat that core after it's been in the dirt."

But Celia Jane had quickly chewed and swallowed it. "It's gone," she said. "Besides, it wasn't dirty enough to amount to anything."

Jerry had returned to contemplation of the elephant jumping the fence, when a youthful voice called from across the street, "Look at it good, kid. I guess it's about all of the circus you'll see."

Jerry and the Mullarkey children turned and faced the speaker. It was "Darn" Darner, the ten-year old son of Timothy Darner, the county overseer of the poor, and a more or less important personage, especially in his own eyes. You had to be very particular how you spoke to "Darn" unless you wanted to get into a fight, and unless you were as old and as big as he was you had no desire to fight with him. He was especially touchy about his name. He had been "Jimmie" at home but once at school he had signed himself, in the full glory of his name, J. Darnton Darner, perhaps to do honor to his grandfather, after whom he had been named. Thereafter "Darn" was the only name that he was known by outside of the classroom and his own home.

He had fights innumerable trying to stop the boys calling him by that name, but it persisted until at length he came to accept it. You could call him "Darn" or shout "Oh, Darn!" and nothing would happen, but if, in your excitement, you grew too emphatic and said "Darn!" or "Oh, Darn!" you might have to run for the nearest refuge, or take a pummeling from his fists.

So now Jerry answered very politely. "It looks good," he said.

"Is the circus coming?" asked Danny.

"Of course it is. What do you suppose they've put up the posters for?"

"It don't say so here," said Nora. "All it says is—"

Darn interrupted. "Where've you kids been? That old poster has been up for a week. Two new ones were pasted up to-day—one at Jenkins' corner and the other on Jeffreys' barn. It's Burrows and Fairchild's mammoth circus and menagerie and it's coming a week from Thursday."

"Are you going, Darn?" asked Danny.

"Am I going?" repeated that youth. "I should say I am going—in a box seat."

"Is it a big circus?" asked Chris.

"It's one of the biggest there is," replied Darn, "with elephants and clowns and a bearded lady and everything. I'll tell you all about it the next day."

Without more ado, he began to whistle and continued on his way. When he was out of sight, Jerry turned back to the billboard, and the Mullarkey children lined up at his side and stood in silent contemplation of the delights forecast in the picture. They felt a new respect for that elephant.

"I don't suppose we can go," said Chris at length in a voice that invited contradiction. His remark was met by silence and they continued to stare at the elephant.

Jerry was puzzled. "What does it want you to ask your mother for fifty cents for?" he asked Danny.

"To buy a ticket for the circus, of course."

"Will she give you fifty cents?"

Danny seemed struck by some sudden thought; whether or not his question had inspired it Jerry was unable to tell. After pondering for a time, Danny set out towards home on a run without having answered the question.

"Where're you goin'?" asked Chris, with a tinge of suspicion in his voice.

"I'm goin' to ask mother and see."

"That's no fair!" cried Chris. "You can run the fastest and 'll get to ask her first."

"She can't give fifty cents to all of us," replied Danny and kept on running.

"Danny Mullarkey! You're a mean old thing!" called Nora.

Already Chris was racing after Danny; the contagion soon spread and first Nora and then Celia Jane were running with all their might after their brothers.

Jerry started to run after them, but it was a half-hearted run and he brought up a very laggard rear. He never tried to get anything for himself that the clannish Mullarkey brood had in their possession, or to which they could with any shred of justice lay claim. If he did, he knew by experience that they would all unite against him—all except Mother 'Larkey, who, trying to earn money to support them all, could not always know what was going on under her tired, kindly eyes, much less the things that took place behind her back. And baby Kathleen, who was too little to feel the claims of the Mullarkey blood and who loved everybody.

But Jerry was sure he had never seen a circus and he did want to go to this one and see the elephant jump the fence. He felt very friendly to that elephant and well acquainted with it. The roguish look in its eyes, in the picture, made it seem a very nice sort of elephant and he knew he would like it.

But he also knew that Mother 'Larkey found it very hard to make both ends meet since her husband died—he had often heard her say so—but there might be a possible chance that she would have several fifty-cent pieces, so he started again to run after the other children, keeping close enough to be in time if Mrs. Mullarkey should happen to be distributing fifty-cent pieces among her brood and there should happen to be an extra one for him. Even though she were not his mother, she might give it to him, she had already done so many things for him.

CHAPTER II

The Black Half-dollar

Jerry's progress was brought to a sudden halt and he was sent sprawling to the ground by running full tilt into a man who tried to turn the same corner at the same time Jerry did, but from the opposite direction. The impact was so swift and so hard that Jerry was