E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Emmy, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team () from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
MY dear children, unless you have been fortunateenough to be taken to the menagerie by somegrown-up friend, somebody who would patiently answerall your questions, and tell you all about the bewitchinglyhorrible animals in the cages, and into whose arms youmight run when they growled and looked fierce, I do notthink you can know the joy of Tom, Trixie and Gay asthey entered the menagerie with Mr. Barnum.