, where
a surging host of boys had already swept in gratis. Gerty writhed in
pain. Stephen felt her collar-bone and found it bent like a horseshoe;
and she fainted before she could be taken from the stage.

When restored, she was quite exhausted, and lay for days perfectly
subdued and gentle, sleeping most of the time. During these days she
had many visitors, and Mr. De Marsan had ample opportunity for the
simple enjoyments of his life, tobacco and conversation. Stephen Blake
and his sister came often, and while she brought her small treasures to
amuse Gerty, he freely pumped the proprietor. Madam Delia had been in
the snake business, it appeared, since early youth, thirteen years ago.
She had been in De Marsan's employ for eight years before her marriage,
and his equal and lawful partner for five years since. At first they
had travelled as side-show to a circus, but that was not so good.

"The way is, you see," said Mr. De Marsan, "to take a place like
Providence, that's a good showtown, right along, and pitch your tent
and live there. Keep-still pays, they say. You'd have to hire a piece
of ground anywhere, for five or six dollars a day, and it don't cost
much more by the week. You can board for four or five dollars a week,
but if you board by the day it's a dollar and a half." To which words
of practical wisdom Stephen listened with pleased interest. It was not
so very many years since he had been young enough to wish to run away
with a circus; and by encouraging these simple confidences, he brought
round the conversation to the children.

But here he was met by a sheer absence of all information as to their
antecedents. The original and deceitful Comstock had brought them and
left them two years before. Madam Delia had received flattering offers
to take her snakes and Gerty into circuses and large museums, but she
had refused for the child's own sake. Did Gerty like it? Yes, she would
like to be posturing all day; she could do anything she saw done; she
"never needed to be taught nothin'," as Mr. De Marsan asserted with
vigorous accumulation of negatives. He thought her father or mother
must have been in the business, she took to it so easily; but she was
just as smart at school in the winter, and at everything else. Was the
life good for her? Yes, why not? Rough company and bad language? They
could hear worse talk every day in the street. "Sometimes a feller
would come in with too much liquor aboard," the showman