nearly ten o'clock
As to which was the best actor , there is never any question ; it is the clown , who showed by the way he turned a double somersault that he can do anything , and who chooses to be clown simply because he is too great a creature to enter into rivalry with the other actors . There will be another performance in the evening , with real fights outside between the circus-men and the country-jakes , and perhaps some of the Basin rounders , but the boys do not expect to come ; that would be too much . The boy 's brother once stayed away in the afternoon , and went at night with one of the jour printers ; but he was not able to report that the show was better than it was in the afternoon . He did not get home till nearly ten o'clock , though , and he saw the sides of the tent dropped before the people got out ; that was a great thing ; and what was greater yet , and reflected a kind of splendor on the boy at second hand , was that the jour printer and the clown turned out to be old friends . After the circus , the boy actually saw them standing near the centre-pole talking together ; and the next day the jour showed the grease that had dripped on his coat from the candles . Otherwise the boy might have thought it was a dream , that some one he knew had talked on equal terms with the clown . The boys were always intending to stay up and see the circus go out of town , and they would have done so , but their mothers would not let them .