AFTER a while we came back home again. We didn’t begin acting right away, though. We practised one or two new tricks. I learned to turn somersaults and to balance a ball on my nose.
Then one night we went to the theatre again. We went quite early that night, and we went by a different way from the way we had gone before. I don’t know why that was. We used to go through a narrow dark street with ash barrels standing in it, and in through the back door of the theatre; but this time we went along a broad bright street where there were crowds of people, and Mr. Bonelli led us in the big front way.
There were big boards standing in the hall of the theatre, with pictures on them,—and one was a picture of me! Me, in my clown clothes up on a high stool and grinning. The other dogs were sniffing about and didn’t see it, and I wouldn’t have seen it only Mr. Bonelli stooped and picked me up in his arms. “Now look! Look at yourself, my little clown dog,” said he. “Is it not a good likeness?” And he took hold of my head and turned it toward the picture.
I knew it was me because of the clown clothes, and the spots of black.
I began to bark, and Mr. Bonelli turned to one of the men and said, “He knows it,—he knows it, my little Master Grineo. Never before was such a dog as he,” and then he dropped me gently and we went on into the theatre.