George Barr McCutcheon

“ She must not be of the circus."
"Mrs. Braddock," said he, rising to his full height, "I only ask you to believe that I love her, and that I, at least, will not change. Will you change, Christine?"
"No," said the girl, giving him her hand as she rose to look into his eyes with the whole of her young heart glowing in hers. "I will not change, David."
"Then, Mrs. Braddock, as a Jenison of Jenison Hall I formally ask you for the hand of your daughter. A gentleman may keep his word of honor for five years—for a hundred years. I pledge my love, my name, my fortune to her." ”

“ I have faced and can still face the real things of life. You are not driving yourself to forget or to overlook all the conditions that surround me, are you? I was a rider. My father was a rider. Oh, you are going to say that my mother was different. But what has that to do with it? What does it matter that she has brought me here, to this home of plenty and of respectability and—well, let us say it, of position. I am the granddaughter of Albert Portman. That may stand for something—yes, it does stand for a great deal. But do not forget, David, dear, that I am the daughter of Tom Braddock. ”

“ If I was you, though, I'd go up that alley there, Brad. It's terrible public here."
"You wicked little brute, you!" cried Braddock in horror, coming to his feet and drawing away as if from a viper. "You cold-blooded whelp! I—I never heard of such—"
"Ain't you going to kill yourself?" demanded Ernie, grinning.
Braddock appeared to ponder. "No," he said with eager finality; "not just now. I've changed my mind. I'm going to have it out with her first. Then, maybe I won't do it at all."
Without another glance at the hunchback he swung off toward the dressing-tent. ”

“ I love Christine."
"Would you be willing to stand at his side, the husband of his daughter, and say, 'I am content to be called your son'—would you?"
David stared hard at the floor for a moment. "I think that is rather an unfair question, Mrs. Braddock, when we stop to recall the fact that both you and Christine have denied him for years. I will call myself his son when you call him husband and Christine speaks of him as father—to the world. You can hardly expect me to be proud of what you are ashamed to own." ”

“ Groups of canvasmen now began to tear down the animal tent—the "menagerie," as it has always been known to the man who pays admission. An hour later, when the big show is over, the spectators will stream forth, even as their own blue seats begin to clatter to earth behind them, and they will blink with amazement to find themselves in the open air, instead of in the menagerie tent. As if by magic it has disappeared, and with it the sideshow and its banners, the Punch and Judy show, the horse tent, the cook tent, the blacksmith shop. ”

“ There is nothing in all this world so incredibly haughty as a circus, from tent-peg to proprietor. Perhaps you who read this have felt your own insignificance while gazing at an imperial tent-peg that happened to lie in your path as you wandered about the grounds; or you have certainly felt mean and lowly in the presence of a program-peddler, and positively servile in contact with a boss canvasman. It is in the air; and the very air is the property of the circus. ”

“ When David drove up to the Portman place, Mrs. Braddock herself arose from one of the chairs in the narrow stone porch at the top of the steps. She, too, had been waiting, but not for the young man who dashed up the steps.
"He has been here," she said, as she gave him her hand. The tenseness of the clasp revealed the strain that was upon her. He noted the pallor in her cheek, the dread in her eyes. The hot glare of the June sun seemed to bring out gray hairs he had never seen before. He had not thought of her as growing old until now. ”

“ Dick Cronk was doomed.
At eleven o'clock on the morning of a bitterly cold Friday in January a grim, sullen group of men, evil-faced fellows whose eyes were heavy with dread, and whose lips hung limp with dejection, crowded around the stove in a squalid, ill-smelling basement room. They spoke but seldom; their voices were rarely raised above the hoarse half-whisper of anxiety known only to men who wait in patience for a thing of horror to come to pass, an inevitable, remorseless thing from which there is no escape. ”

“ David recalled this figure at once: a squat, hunchback lad who was to be seen at times behind the counter of the "snack stand." More than once had the strong, straight Virginian gazed with a certain pity upon the pale-faced cripple. He had been struck by the look of patient suffering in the boy's face.
But now that look was gone. The hunchback, who could have been no more than fifteen, was convulsed by rage. He was showing his teeth like a vicious dog. The most appalling flow of profanity came shrieking through his white lips. David was shocked. ”

“ He had never been so close to men and women in tights before. Somehow they were not so alluring as when viewed from the blue seats of the circus tent. The fluffy, abbreviated tarletan skirts of two women bareback riders who stood not more than two yards away seemed tawdry and flimsy at close range; the pink fleshings of the world's greatest somersault artist looked rumpled and fuzzy; the zouave costume of the lady rope-walker lost its satiny sheen through propinquity; the clown was dusty and greasy and stuffy. ”

“ She passed close by him. He stood motionless, seeing no one else, thinking of no one but this slim, adorable girl who had no eyes for him. At her side strode a tall, good-looking fellow whose manner toward her could be mistaken for nothing short of simple adoration.
She was smiling brightly, even rapturously up into the eyes of this eager swain. In another instant they were lost in the crowd that rushed to the ferry, but David was never to forget that passing glimpse of her—not to the day of his death. ”

“ A circus is the safest harbor in all the world for the thief and the lawbreaker. Why should it not be so for one who is innocent?"
"Let me tell you all about it, madam," began David Jenison, the hunted. She stopped him.
"Not now. There is no time for that. We will take you on faith and we will help you. My boy, I knew in the beginning that you were of gentle birth—I saw it in your face, in the way you held yourself. But that you should be one of the Jenisons of Virginia—why, Grinaldi, the Jenisons are the bluest—But, there, we'll talk of that another time, too. Sam!" ”

“ What I want to know, right here, Jenison, is this: Where is your friend Bob Grand and where is she?"
He spoke quite calmly, but there was a deliberate menace in his tones. David was startled. An angry retort leaped to his lips, but he choked it back.
"You are very much mistaken, Braddock, if you consider me the friend of Colonel Grand. I hate him quite as bitterly as you do. I—"
"Oh, no, you don't," snapped the other. "No one in all this world, from its very beginning, has ever hated as I hate."
"He is no friend of mine," reiterated David. ”

“ The horse tent beyond was even now being lowered by shadowy, mystic figures who swore and shouted to each other across spaces wide and spaces small without regulating the voice to either effort. Horses, with their clanking trace-chains, in twos and fours, slipped in and out of the shadows, drawing great vehicles which rumbled and jarred with the noise peculiar to circus wagons: tired, underfed horses that paid little heed to the curses or the blows of the men who handled them, so accustomed were they to the proddings of life. ”

“ Do you think it would be kind to Christine if you were to follow the show for no other reason than to be near her? Would that be the act of a sincere friend? She would be compromised, I think you will admit. It was different before. You were one of us. Now you are an outsider. Even the easiest-going of the performers would resent your attitude if you were to follow us now. It is an unwritten law among us that an outsider is always an outsider. We are like gypsies. Even you, who have been one of us, can have no future standing in our tribe—for that is what we are, David. ”

“ It required a moment of concentration on the part of the infatuated David to grasp the significance of a certain livid hue in Ernie's face. The hunchback was looking up at him. His eyes were bleak with unhappiness. There was no anger in them: only despair.
"That's the fellow," he was saying, his voice cracking hoarsely. "He's the one she's in love with."
David started. "You mean—she's in love with him?" he demanded blankly.
"That's Bertie Stanfield. He's a great swell. He was here to meet her. I saw him. It's—it's no use, David. No one else has got a show." ”

“ Was Mary Braddock, after all, in a position to redeem her promise?
The candle sputtered and went out. But he was no more in the dark than he had been all along. If there was to be light, he must make it for himself. He would not wait for her to speak out of the darkness. He would search her out, come what may; he would claim Christine.
With his mind full of the decision to go to New York as soon as possible, where it would be an easy matter to find Colonel Grand, at least, he hurried down to an early breakfast, successfully evading his body-servant. ”

“ Braddock would accomplish his end, of that he was as sure as he was certain that the sun would rise in the morning. It was in the cards. He knew. He was a true-born gambler, with all the instincts, all the wiles, all the insight of one who courts Chance and fights it at the same time. Such men as Robert Grand go on defying Fate to the bitter end, but they know that there will be an end, and in the end they are bound to lose. ”

“ David, in no little wonder and apprehension, tossed his hat on the bed and sat down upon its edge. Ruby was sitting at the little table in the center of the room, her elbows upon it, her chin in her hands. She was gazing fixedly at the nonchalant outsider who leaned back in the only rocking-chair and puffed at his pipe. He had declined the mug of beer that had been tendered by the opulent Joey. ”

“ I can think of no greater joy that could come to me than to see Christine your wife—some day. But we must face the true conditions. She may always be a circus rider. I hope to take her away from this life—yes, soon, may it please God. You think now that you will always care. But I know the world. I know youth too well. ”

“ Christine was glowing upon him in grateful amazement, unutterable relief in her gaze. To her, it meant only that he was rich and could save himself. It did not occur to her that he had come by the riches dishonestly, nor was she at once conscious of a feeling that her father would do wrong to accept the tribute. It was not until later that she felt the shock of revulsion.
"It is my money!" cried David, speaking to Mrs. Braddock. "Every cent of it! I—I know what you are thinking. You think I stole it." His eyes were flashing and his chin was held high now. "I'll kill any one who says I steal. ”

“ Braddock to hurry back here as soon as he is through with the tickets!" The man slid out between the flapping walls. "Now, Grinaldi, you must make it your business to tell every one who this boy is, and what must be done for him. Don't be alarmed, David Jenison," she said with a smile. He had opened his lips to protest. "There isn't a soul in all this company, from feed-boy to proprietor, who will betray you to the officers of the law. We stand together—the innocent and the guilty. If you are vouched for by Joey Grinaldi and—me, or by any other in our little universe, that is the end of it. ”

“ The world knows that I ran away to be married, but it has forgotten the circumstances. The general belief is that my husband died years and years ago, and that I have lived abroad ever since. There is one thing to his credit, David. I shall not forget it. When he was arrested, he thought of Christine and—and—well, he gave an assumed name, an alias, to the police. Colonel Grand kept his own silence, and for years he has held this over me as a threat. I have had many letters from him, believe me. Christine is no longer the little, unheard-of circus rider. She is—well, she is a personage. ”

“ The wayfarers looked at each other in the darkness and listened in wonder to these sounds that rose above the swish of the restless rain.
"It's a band," murmured one of the two behind.
"Yas, 'r; a circus band," vouchsafed the guide, a sudden eagerness in his voice. "Van Slye's Great and Only Mammoth Shows—"
"A circus?" interrupted one of the men gruffly. "Then the whole town is full of strangers. That's bad for us, Blake."
"I don't see why. He's more than likely to be where the excitement's highest, ain't he? He's not too old for that. ”

“ I like these gay little affairs," went on the Colonel, not even attempting to conceal his shrug of disgust for Braddock. "I am leaving for home to-night, but I expect to return in two or three days. You must all join hands in breaking me into the circus business. Don't let me be a—what is it you call it? A rube, that's it. We'll be the show's happy family. Every circus has a 'happy family.' Yes, 'pon my soul, I like the life. I do enjoy these quiet, impromptu little suppers."'
David was suddenly conscious that Braddock's eyes were upon him. He met the gaze, curiously impelled. ”

“ I'll wait," remarked Braddock, still very quietly. The man stared hard at him, suddenly struck by the pallor of his face. His eyes swept the grim figure in the ill-fitting suit of jeans.
"What do you want? Can't you leave a message?"
"Want? I want to see her." The footman glanced back over his shoulder as if searching for some one on whom he could shift an amazing responsibility. Recalling his dignity, he essayed to close the door in Braddock's face.
"I am her husband," announced the caller, his hands still in his pockets. The servant's hand was stayed. ”