“What did I tell you?” said Will.

“Oh, it ain’t because they think it wicked, the hussies. They turn up their noses at it, just because it’s under their noses. If they had to go to Greenwich Fair to see it, they’d fight to get in. Candidly, cocky, have you ever seen a better bill?”

“It seems only too much,” ventured Will.

“It don’t say all at the same performance. In practice it all comes down to The Mistletoe Bough, the silliest of the lot, a bride who shuts herself in a chest for fun, you know, and moulders into a spirit. But think of Richardson’s—what they cram into twenty-five minutes! You saw that at Greenwich, I suppose, Easter time.”

“No, I only got to London in time for the Great Exhibition.”

“You’ve been to that?” The Showman’s eyes sparkled.

“What I came back for.”

“That’s a Show!!” And a note of immeasurable envy mixed with the rapture of the rival impresario. “But what a chance missed!”

“How so?”

“No drinks.”

“I got lemonade.”

“That’s not a drink—that’s a gas. Lord, I thought, looking at that bumper house, with a proper Christian bar, they could pay off the National Debt.”

“You’ve seen it then?”

“Was there at the opening. Stood so near the Royal Party I patted the head of little Wales, and the Goldstick and Chamberlain walking backwards from the Presence nearly shoved me into the Chinese Ambassador just as he was salaaming on his stomach. Didn’t little Albert Edward look sweet in his Highland costume?”

“I wasn’t inside then,” confessed Will, “and I only had eyes for the Queen and her cream-coloured horses. You’ve got a season ticket, I suppose.”

“With the Prince Consort’s compliments. The fact is, I supplied the elephant for the Queen’s howdah.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, didn’t you see it in the Indian compartment? They wanted to show off the magnificent trappings she got from the Rajah, and they thought of getting a real live elephant, which would have been no end of trouble amid all those precious vases. But I happened to know of a stuffed elephant at a show down here in Essex, so I entered into correspondence with Buckingham Palace and loaned the beast for the season—buying him up first, of course—and sent him up in my caravan that had to be roused from its winter sleep and completely unpacked. Yes, trouble enough! But talk of the Koh-i-noor, that elephant’ll be worth his weight in gold when he comes back—Queen Victoria’s elephant as visited by the nobility and gentry of the world. I annex the Great Exhibition. See!”

“I wish I’d noticed him,” said Will wistfully. “I only saw her statue in zinc, seven yards high. But there’s so much to see—machinery and jewels and Mexican figures, it makes your head ache, and I couldn’t even get a look at that Koh-i-noor, such a crush round it. But did you see the Preserved Pig?”

The Showman’s eyes twinkled. “Mr. Woods, d’ye mean?”

“Mr. Woods?”

“The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Haven’t you noticed how they’ve left off abusing the income tax now they’ve got the show to talk about? By Jove,” he chuckled, “what a haul for the Exchequer if they bring the Crystal Palace under the window tax!”

“No, no! Best Berkshire breed. The real marvel of the Exhibition! None o’ your stuffed creatures, but a natural pig cured whole. Weighs three and a half hundredweight; five foot and a half from tail to snout. ’Twas done by a provision merchant in Dublin—Smith—I took note of the name.”

“That name will be immortal,” said Mr. Flippance gravely.

“Yes, and there was a monster pigeon-pie!” said Will with the same unsuspicious enthusiasm.

The church clock, striking four at this point, made the Showman bound frantically to his doorway. “Not done yet, you snails and sluts! When am I to get these bills to the tent? Do you realize we open to-night? You’ll ruin the show.”

“I’ll take them,” volunteered Will. “My road lays by the field.”

“A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Tony thrust the heavy roll effusively into Will’s hands. “Ask for my daughter—she’ll help you to stick ’em up on the bill-boards.”

“Your daughter?” murmured Will. He would have resented his sudden reduction to a bill-poster but for the romantic vision of the Bohemian petticoat.

“I can’t pull the strings on both sides of the stage at once, can I? Not to mention the women’s and boys’ voices, and the piping Gaffers. Lord, she’s got a head on her, has Polly. And pops in and out to play the piano too.”

With pleasant flutterings of the springtide fancy, the young man lightly strode with his roll under his arm to the field where a long chocolate-coloured caravan—apparently the vehicle that had transported the elephant—stood horseless at an aperture in the mammoth mushroom described by Tony Flip. Labourers in shirt-sleeves were carrying in ropes and rough benches. Small boys and large dogs stood around, and there was a litter of straw, cardboard, shivered packing-cases, and dirty paper. Two trucks covered with tarpaulin, and a vast box with a high-pitched roof marked “Duke’s Marionettes,” completed the confusion. Will, peeping in, saw a stage already set, at the border of which a girl on her knees was tacking a row of tin footlight-holders. The rear was already roped off, and the benches seemed to rise like a gallery. Evidently the thing was done in style—crowned heads or no crowned heads. Not without a thrill he walked in, and across the grassy floor, but romance fled when the girl, raising her head, presented a face almost as massive as her father’s, and ravaged by smallpox to boot. Polly had indeed “a head on her,” he thought, though long pendent ear-rings preserved its femininity.

Politely concealing his chill, he murmured “Miss Flippance,” and explained he had been instructed to deliver the bills to her.

She received them and him with an indifference that would have been galling had she been prettier, and was not gratifying even from a massive brain.

“Silly nonsense!” she grumbled, unrolling them. “To open before you’ve done your posting and circularizing. There won’t be a soul!”

“Oh, surely—this weather!” he murmured.

Miss Flippance threw him an annihilating glance. “If dad once gets an idea into his head, you can’t get it out with a forceps.” Will stared at this vigorous young lady, who, with a poster unfurled in her hand, proceeded to yell directions and rebukes at the bench-arranging clodhoppers. It was an insult to his sex, he felt resentfully. No woman, however ugly, had the right to order men about, men who were not even married to her.

“Nincompoops! They’ll never be ready for to-night,” said Miss Flippance, acknowledging his existence again. “Would to heaven dad had gone up to London to see the Exhibition—and not hustled us like this.”

“But he was there at the opening.”

Miss Flippance stared at him. “Were you with him?”

“No such luck. I didn’t even see the stuffed elephant.”

“Has he stuffed you with that?” Miss Flippance emitted a mirthless laugh, and Will looked at once angry and sheepish. “Not that way, you hulking brutes! Turn ’em round.... And besides, it’s ridiculous to give Hamlet. High art don’t take south of Scarborough.”

“Well, I saw Othello in London last week,” he contradicted sharply—she should see he was no mere gull: “And the pit was packed.”

“Yes—in April. But try it in the dog-days.”

“Too warm, eh?” he sniggered. She turned away as from an idiot. That hurt him more than having swallowed her father’s royal rodomontade. Did she then think the plot of Othello glacial? Or had she no sense of humour? Yes, that was it—the sex had been denied the sense of humour. True, it shrieked with laughter if you tickled it, but the tickling must be physical. Ah, she was at it again, bustling and bullying the superior sex. Well, he wasn’t going to paste bills under her. Let that lazy liar of a Showman do his own dirty work.

“Good afternoon,” he called out huffily, and walked out of the great tent in a far less romantic mood than when he had entered it. And then, as he came through the opening in the canvas, his eyes nearly started out of their sockets: Daniel Quarles’s cart stood outside the tent, and there, perched on the driving-board, holding the reins, and calmly instructing the shirt-sleeved yokels to deliver the big drum to Miss Flippance, was the girl of the parcel-shed!