it to
write to Pa and get a poor girl in trouble, but was not the man to risk
his skin! She laughed, not a stage smile, no, a real laugh, head thrown
back, full-throated. An artiste, O Lord! Yes, like a heap of bluffers who
were to do this and that, all sorts of wonderful things! and who ended by
making a laughing stock of themselves, the whole business was so childish,
faked up with ropes and weights, nursery-toys, Punch-and-Judy rubbish. It
would be just like that with Jimmy, sure: lots of noise and then ...
nothing! And he would have lost his place as manager and he would starve,
the josser: that would teach him to be spiteful! And where was Jimmy? He
might be very clever, in his shed in London, swinging from his rope, like
a monkey on a string, but to do that before an audience was different.
There would be no Jimmy left!

She liked to talk to herself like that. Miss Lily avoided thinking of a
possible stroke of luck, she who had taken such pains to attain so little,
just to become Mrs. Trampy, to have the honor of working for Trampy and
feeding Trampy. Oh, she was tired of it, did all she could to find him
work, to spur him on! She even wanted him to practise. And she mentioned
Tom and Jimmy to him, all those beginners, all the others who were coming
on.

"She thinks more of him than of me," he said to himself.

And time passed and passed. It was now eight months that they had been
traveling through Germany: and then, at last, came Berlin, the center of
the agencies, like the plunge into Chicago, after the Western Tour, or New
York, after the Eastern, or Paris, or London. Lily asked herself for what
part of the world she would sign contracts. She would have liked
Australia, South Africa, the States, so as to leave her husband in Europe,
sitting up on his hind-quarters, like a trained dog, waiting for his
"missis" to come back:

"If I could have the Kolossal in the meantime," Lily thought. "A month
there would do me nicely! I'd like to beat the fat freaks in their own
country and show Pa that I don't need his old troupe to star with!"

And Lily had some hope: an agent had given her to understand that she
would be engaged, without a doubt, at that famous music-hall. But no! She
learned that the Kolossal was not wanting cyclists, it had an attraction
for next month, something sensational, it was said. And, in fact,
suddenly, in the space of a night, the walls of the capital were covered
with huge posters--"Bridgi