Just then Mr. Lemuel Long and Judge Dot got up to go to bed and Jib Jab called, “So long, Shorty! So short, Longy!”

While he was laughing at them, I whispered to Harry, “Notice the ring on his finger.” I guess Harry noticed it all right, only he didn’t say anything.

He just said, “Your face seems familiar to me; you were in my regiment, eh?”

“I was one of those in the machine gun nest,” Jib Jab said; “don’t you remember the four privates you saved?”

Harry said, “Oh, you were one of those fellows, eh? Glad to see that you got back to the States all right. I came to see you, but I didn’t know who you were; that is, I didn’t know you had been in France. You’re Horace E. Chandler, I think, aren’t you? I’m glad to see that you’re human; there seems to be some question. Will you have a cigarette?”

Gee, it was awful funny to watch the two of them. Jib Jab just stared at him while Harry lifted himself up on the edge of the exhibition platform and lighted a cigarette, kind of off-hand and friendly like.

“How’s the savage beast business?” he asked him.

“What makes you thing I’m Chandler?” Jib Jab said.

Harry said, “Oh, I’ve suspected you were Chandler ever since these boys saw your picture in the paper, but of course, I didn’t know you had been mixed up in the big scrap with me. Funny how things come about, huh?”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to admit it,” Jib Jab said; “I hope you’re not going to shout it out loud.”

“No, I just want your assistance. I think you’re a good sport. Far be it from me to criticise you for being a what-is-it. I’d like to be one myself. Must be kind of nice flopping around the country with a lot of freaks. How much does that skinny fellow weigh, anyhow? He looks like a ramrod. Little fellow’s kind of pesky, isn’t he?”

The two of them just sat there smoking cigarettes. Harry was dangling his legs from the platform and Jib Jab had his feet resting on it and his chair tilted back. It was awful funny to see them. For a couple of minutes neither of them said anything, only Harry kept looking around at the platforms where the freaks usually were.

Pretty soon he just blurted out, “How’d you happen to hit this job, Chandler?”

Jib Jab said, “Oh, I don’t know; it’s a long story. It’s a pretty good job when you want to lie low.”

“Lie low, huh? Why, what’s the matter?” Harry asked.

Cracky, I never saw Jib Jab so serious before. He said, “Oh, I was just one of the heroes that didn’t get a job, that’s all. I’m a happy-go-lucky.”

“Same here,” Harry said, and he just kept looking at him, awful sharp and searching, kind of.

“I came back from France broke.”

“Same here,” Harry said.

“And I just thought I’d try to pull together a bit before I hit the trail for home,” Jib Jab went on. “I had a little over two hundred dollars to bring home to my old dad, but they relieved me of it in a sailors’ dance hall over in Brest.”

“Live up near Plattsburg, eh?”

“Yop, and I started home as soon as I was mustered out, but didn’t make it. Just couldn’t face the old folks—busted. I tried to get a job in Albany, in Poughkeepsie; nothing doing. Worked for a couple of days for a farmer over here in Elm Center, then hit the circus. Circus is a great place when you’re down and out. Ever work in a circus?”

“I kinder think I’d like to,” Harry said; “I’ve done most everything else.”

“So here I am among the missing till I can save as much as I promised to bring home. I sent the old gent a letter saying I had two hundred bucks. I don’t know who’s got that two hundred, but I know one thing; I’m not going up to Greendale till I have that much. I’m not human till then.”

“Old gent write you a letter?” Harry asked, kind of careless.

“Yop, and warned me. Didn’t do much good.” For about a minute Harry just sat there smoking and Jib Jab did the same thing. Neither one of them spoke. Harry was whistling Over There. Then he reached down into his pocket and threw a roll of bills into Jib Jab’s lap.

“Here’s your two hundred, Jib,” he said; “and here’s part of the letter. Let’s have a squint at that ring, will you?”

Gee whiz, I guess you could have knocked Jib Jab down with a feather.