inge, all unwittingly, thrust into the
pit which had been digged for him.

At the point where the narrative was broken into for the interpolation
of the episode now set forth, the head of the parade, as will be
remembered, was just coming abreast of the old show-grounds. Now, the
head of the parade was Cephus Fringe, and none other. One glance at him,
upon a white steed, all glorious in high hat and frock coat and with
that wide crimson sash dividing his torso in two parts, would have
proved that to the most ignorant. As for his palfrey, she ambled along
as though Eighth of August celebrations and a saxophone blaring between
her drooping ears, and jubilating crowds and all that singing behind
her, and all these carnival barkers shouting alongside her, had been her
daily portion since first she was foaled into the world. The compound
word lady-like would be the word fittest to describe her.

Not twenty feet from her, close up to where the abutting common met the
straggling brick pavement, stood the battered Flyin' Jinny of Gumbo
Rollins. It was nearermost to the street-line of all the attractions
provided by AEsop Loving and his associates. Here, on the site which he
had chosen, was Gumbo Rollins himself, competently in charge. At the
precise moment when Mittie May and her proud rider had reached a point
just opposite him, Gumbo Rollins elected to set his device in motion and
with it the steam-organ which was part and parcel of the thing's
organism. Really he might have waited a bit.

Lured by the prospect of beholding something for nothing, most of his
consistent patrons temporarily had deserted him to flock out into the
roadway and witness the passing by of the Sin Killer's cohorts. Two
infatuated lovers, country darkies, sat with arms entwined in a rickety
wooden chariot. Here and there a piccaninny clung to the back of a
spotted wooden pony or a striped wooden zebra. These, for the moment,
were his only customers; nevertheless Gumbo Jones Rollins swung a lever
and started the machinery. The merry-go-round moved with a shriek of
steam; the wheezy organ began spouting forth the introductory bars of a
rollicking _galop_, a tune so old that its very name had been forgotten,
although the air of it lived anonymously.

As though she had been bee-stung, Mittie May flung up her head. She
arched her neck and pranced with all four of her feet. She spun about,
scattering those of the pedestrian classes who hemmed her so close