lk no more 'n nothin' at all," said Madam Delia reproachfully,
to the large policeman who stood by her. "He never speaks up bold to
nobody. Why don't he tell 'em what's inside the tent? I don't want him
to say no more 'n the truth, but he might tell that. Tell 'em about
Gerty, you nincum! Tell 'em about the snakes. Tell 'em what Comstock
is. 'T ain't the real original Comstock" (this to the policeman), "it's
only another that used to perform with him in Comstock Brothers. This
one can't swaller, so we leave out the knives."

"Where's t' other?" said the sententious policeman, whose ears were
always open for suspicious disappearances.

"Didn't you hear?" cried the incredulous lady. "Scattered! Gone! Went
off one day with a box of snakes and two monkeys. Come, now, you must
have heard. We had a sight of trouble pay-in' detectives."

"What for a looking fellow was he?" said the policeman.

"Dark complected," was the reply. "Black mustache. He understood his
business, I tell you now. Swallered five or six knives to onst, and
give good satisfaction to any audience. It was him that brought us
Gerty and Anne,--that's the other little girl. I didn't know as they
was his children, and didn't know as they was, but one day he said he
got 'em from an old woman in New York, and that was all he knew."

"They're smart," said the man, whom Gerty had just coaxed into paying
three cents instead of two for Number Six of the "Singer's Journal,"--a
dingy little sheet, containing a song about a fat policeman, which she
had brought to his notice.

"You'd better believe it," said Madam Delia, proudly. "At least Gerty
is; Anne ain't. I tell 'em, Gerty knows enough for both. Anne don't
know nothin', and what she does know she don't know sartin. All she can
do is just to hang on: she's the strongest and she does the heavy
business on the trapeze and parallel bars."

"Is Gerty good on that?" said the public guardian.

"I tell you," said the head of the establishment.--"Go and dress,
children! Five minutes!"

All this time Madam Delia had been taking occasional fees from the
tardy audience, had been making change, detecting counterfeit currency,
and discerning at a glance the impostures of one deceitful boy who
claimed to have gone out on a check and lost it. At last Stephen Blake
and his little sister entered, and the house was regarded as full.
These two revellers had drained deep the cup of "Election-day"
excitement. They had twirled a