you're a good sport. Far be it
from me to criticise you for being a _what-is-it_. I'd like to be one
myself. Must be kind of nice flopping around the country with a lot of
freaks. How much does that skinny fellow weigh, anyhow? He looks like
a ramrod. Little fellow's kind of pesky, isn't he?"

The two of them just sat there smoking cigarettes. Harry was dangling his
legs from the platform and Jib Jab had his feet resting on it and his chair
tilted back. It was awful funny to see them. For a couple of minutes
neither of them said anything, only Harry kept looking around at the
platforms where the freaks usually were. Pretty soon he just blurted out,
"How'd you happen to hit this job, Chandler?"

Jib Jab said, "Oh, I don't know; its a long story. It's a pretty good job
when you want to lie low."

"Lie low, huh? Why, what's the matter?" Harry asked.

"Cracky, I never saw Jib Jab so serious before." He said, "Oh, I was just
one of the heroes that didn't get a job, that's all. I'm a happy-go-lucky."

"Same here," Harry said, and he just kept looking at him, awful sharp and
searching, kind of.

"I came back from France broke."

"Same here," Harry said.

"And I just thought I'd try to pull together a bit before I hit the trail
for home," Jib Jab went on. "I had a little over two hundred dollars to
bring home to my old dad, but they relieved me of it in a sailors' dance
hall over in Brest."

"Live up near Plattsburg, eh?"

"Yop, and I started home as soon as I was mustered out, but didn't make it.
Just couldn't face the old folks--busted. I tried to get a job in Albany,
in Poughkeepsie; nothing doing. Worked for a couple of days for a farmer
over here in Elm Center, then hit the circus. Circus is a great place when
you're down and out. Ever work in a circus?"

"I kinder think I'd like to," Harry said; "I've done most everything else."

"So here I am among the missing till I can save as much as I promised to
bring home. I sent the old gent a letter saying I had two hundred bucks. I
don't know who's got that two hundred, but I know one thing; I'm not going
up to Greendale till I have that much. I'm not human till then."

"Old gent write you a letter?" Harry asked, kind of careless.

"Yop, and warned me. Didn't do much good." For about a minute Harry just
sat there smoking and Jib Jab did the same thing. Neither one of them
spoke. Harry was whistling _Over There_. Then he reached down into his
pocket and threw a r