Explore "Dan Fitzgerald Explains" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The circus was having its afternoon siesta. Overhead the towering canvas tent spread like a giant mushroom on a network of stalks -- slanting beams, interlaced with guys and wire ropes.
The ring looked small and lonely; its circle of empty benches seemed to stare intently at it, as though some sort of unseen performance were going on for the benefit of a ghostly audience. Now and again a guy rope creaked, or a loose end of canvas flapped like faint, unreal applause, as the silence shut down again, it did not need much imagination to people the ring with dead and gone circus riders performing for the benefit of shadowy spectators packed on those benches.