FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   >>  
's rubber serpents, the fat woman's pillows, and the bearded lady's false whiskers (I don't know what they did about the living skeleton), these fellows were now gaping before Tristan's platform, and growing hostile as their rather inadequate brains failed to cook up any damaging explanation. "Yah!" yelled a long-necked, flap-eared youth, suddenly. "He's got an iron bar in that rope!" They had come too late to see the parachute drop. Tristan grinned and pulled himself down the rope, which of course fell limp behind him. At this, the crowd jeered and booed the too-hasty youth, who became so resentfully abusive of Tristan that one of the attendants pushed him out of the tent. As he passed me, I caught fragments of wrathy words: "Wisht I had a ... Show'm whether it's a fake...." * * * * * Tristan closed his act by dropping full-length to the end of his invisible wire, then pulled himself down, got into his stilts, and was unfastening the belt, when the manager rushed in with a request that he repeat, for the benefit of a special party just arrived on a delayed train. "Go on and look at the animals, old man." Tristan called to me. "I'll be with you in about half an hour!" I strolled out idly, meeting on the way the flap-eared youth, who seemed bent on making his way back into the tent, wearing a mingled air of furtiveness, of triumph, and anticipation. Wondering casually just what kind of fool the lad was planning to make of himself next, I wandered on toward the main entrance--only to be stopped by an appalling uproar behind me. There was a raucous, gurgling shriek of mortal terror; the loud composite "O-o-o!" of a shocked or astonished crowd; a set of fervent curses directed at some one; loud confused babbling, and then a woman's voice raised in a seemingly endless succession of hysterical shrieks. Thinking that an animal had gotten loose, or something of that kind, I wheeled. Unmistakably the racket came from Tristan's own tent. Cold dread clutching at my heart, and with lead on my boot soles, I rushed frantically back. At the entrance I was held by a mad onrush of humanity for some moments. When I reached the platform, Tristan was not in sight. Then I noticed the long-necked boy sitting on the platform with his face in his hands, shrieking: "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to! Damn it, don't touch me! I thought sure it was a fake!" I saw a new, glittering jack-knife l
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   >>  



Top keywords:

Tristan

 

platform

 

pulled

 
necked
 
rushed
 

entrance

 
furtiveness
 

terror

 

astonished

 

shocked


wearing
 

making

 

mingled

 

composite

 

Wondering

 
planning
 

appalling

 

wandered

 

stopped

 
uproar

casually

 
fervent
 

mortal

 

anticipation

 

shriek

 

raucous

 

gurgling

 
triumph
 

Thinking

 

reached


noticed

 

moments

 

frantically

 

onrush

 

humanity

 

sitting

 

glittering

 

shrieking

 

thought

 

hysterical


succession

 

shrieks

 

meeting

 

animal

 

endless

 

seemingly

 
confused
 

directed

 

babbling

 

raised