Then the Italian asked him to favor us with a waltz, and the pony got up on his hind legs and danced.

You should have seen that gander skirmishing around, so as to be near the pony and yet keep out of the way of his heels.

We fellows just roared, and we would have kept him dancing all the afternoon if the Italian hadn't begged 'ze young gentlemen not to make ze noise, but let ze pony do ze rest of his tricks.' Pony number two came on the stage, and it was too queer for anything to see the things the two of them did.

They helped the Italian on with his coat, they pulled off his rubbers, they took his coat away and brought him a chair, and dragged a table up to it.

They brought him letters and papers, and rang bells, and rolled barrels, and swung the Italian in a big swing, and jumped a rope, and walked up and down steps they just went around that stage as handy with their teeth as two boys would be with their hands, and they seemed to understand every word their master said to them.
"The best trick of all was telling the time and doing questions in arithmetic.