g, and cruelty which passed between the
pair; and if he had, the single-hearted child would not have understood
their significance.

It was a strange scene on which Darby Dene's eyes rested when the party
halted at the hollow where the Satellite Circus Company had made their
headquarters for the night. Within the shelter of the firs a fire of
crackling sticks was burning brightly. Hanging over the flame, suspended
by an iron chain from the centre of three crossed metal bars, swung a
big black pot, from which there came such a savoury smell that, in spite
of his disappointment over the break in their journey, Darby could not
help thinking it a lucky thing that they were going to get a share. A
lad of about twelve years old was feeding the fire from a pile of dry
branches that lay by his side--a lad with short woolly curls, shining,
gleaming white teeth, thick lips, and a skin as dark as if he had been
blackleaded all over. He was a negro, Darby knew. He had seen a black
man only once before, and he now stared at this boy as if he could not
remove his gaze. The lad's clothes, too, were queer. He had on a dingy
purple velvet jacket, covered with frayed gold lace, tawdry tinsel
braid, tarnished gilt buttons, with long, wide red and white striped
cotton trousers, from which his dusky ankles and bare flat feet flopped
about like the fins of some great ungainly fish.

Squatted on the grass, on the further side of the fire from the black
boy, was a small figure which Darby at first thought was that of a
child. But when at the sound of Joe Harris's footsteps it rose, moved
slowly close to the crossbars, stood on tiptoe, lifted the lid, peered
into the steaming pot, _then_--with the firelight falling full upon
it--he saw that this was not a child; it was a man.

But what sort of a man? Was he a _real_ man, or only a make-believe,
such as was sometimes seen at shows and fairs? Darby knew about dwarfs,
certainly, although he had never seen one, and at last he concluded that
this must be a dwarf--this small creature not much taller than Joan, yet
with a huge, broad-shouldered body, square and solid as Moll's own,
overgrown head, covered with a thick mop of heavy dark hair, pale, sad
face, weary eyes, short, stunted legs, large feet, and the longest arms,
the thinnest hands Darby had ever seen in all his life. This was
Bambo--Bambo, Mr. Harris's musical dwarf! and the boy shrank
instinctively behind the shelter of Moll's ample skir