As Talked in the Sanctum [pp. A465-A468]

Overland Monthly
VOL. XXVI. (Second Series.) —November, I895. —No. I55.
AS TALKED IN THE
SANCTUM.
By HEEDITOR.~~
i,~ ELF THERE was a circus in town i
and its cohorts were;
gleaming in purple and gold
directly beneath the Sanctum windows. A score of
"-/'" horsemen and a half dozen lancers were in the lead.
There was a troupe of Sitting Bulls and a steam piano. The
Office Boy from the fire escape dropped an overripe fig into
the lap of the Queen of Carthage, who was luxuriously
idling in a golden chariot. The Queen's Celtic-Ethiopian
fan bearer shook his gauntlet at the admiring convoy of small boys who had dared
to laugh. Her Majesty scraped with her scepter the tropical jam from her regal
robes, and the Poet composed an original sonnet on the spot that begins, "Uneasy
is the head that wears a crown." The accident, however, did not stop the procession, although it retired the Office Boy and caused him to miss the elephants.
From time immemorial the circus has come to town, to every town, once a year.
The same old-fashioned circus, as changeless as marbles and whooping cough. The
small boy always goes in spite of parents or funds, and the big boy relates the
same old story of how he earned his way by carrying water for the elephants,- but
more than likely stole in under the canvas. The newspapers the day after contain
the same familiar pictures of the small boy with bandaged neck who tried to
watch three rings at once, and of the good deacon who went to teach his grandchildren natural history and never mentioned the girls in tights who rode bareback.
Everything is just the same as when the Parson and the Contributor were half a century younger. The Circassian lady and the living skeleton, the fat woman and the
India rubber man, were there and the lion tamer did the identical tricks that lion
tamers have been doing since the days of Daniel. Everybody ate peanuts and it
(Copyright, 1895, by OVERLAND MONTHLY PUBLISHING CO.) All rights reserved.
Commercial Publishing Company, S. F.