"When you say about connecting a gag with a circus, there’s one trick that I’ll always remember. It so simple, and it always works too!"

"Barry and I had been down to see the Anglo American Circus near Chichester, and we were coming back through the South Downs. As we drove through one of the smaller villages we saw another circus, built up on the green, so we stopped and went to meet them. A real family show where you rely on your own talent. But, that’s where I first saw ‘Three Threes are Ten!’"
"Pick up Five,"
"Exactly! The ringmaster asks the clown where he has been all the day, and the clown says he’s been at school."
"What has he learnt!"

"The clown tells the audience that he’s been learning arithmetic...."
     ....Tickle me quick,"
     "Who’s telling it? You or me?"
"The ringmaster says the clown can’t be any good at sums, because he plays truant from school too often. But he’ll test him all the same."

The ringmaster tries him with two times two.
"Four,"
"Very good!" So he tries three times three....
The clown says TEN.

Mr Twizzle took the last three chocolate biscuits out of the packet and laid them in a line across the plate.
"Watch carefully how the clown counts...."
He picked up the biscuits, one at a time, lifting them from the plate and putting them down again as he counted. The companions counted with him.
"One. Two. Three. Four."
He started to pick up the biscuits and put them in the other hand as he continued.
"Five. Six. Seven."
He looked guilty as he put them back down again....
""Eight. Nine. TEN."
He sat back, looking very satisfied with himself, as the first campanion tried it. He made it nine on his try.
But the second looked at the clown with a smile on his face. He gripped his lower lip between his teeth, and winked at Mr Twizzle, because he had remembered the name they had called the trick.
He lifted and dropped the biscuits in turn, counting to four.

He picked them up to reach seven, and put the down.
eight -–nine – ten!