leap into the entrance-hall of the house which
had been indicated to him, and narrowly escaped collision with a man who
was moving smartly towards the street.

'Hillo!' said the man, slipping nimbly on one side, and staring at him
as he suddenly arrested himself.

'Hillo!' said Paul. He was face to face with the jaundiced man of
Saturday. 'Are you Herr Pauer?

He was guided to the question by the man's attire. He was in some sort
of circus uniform, and in act to button a huge shaggy overcoat above it.

'That's my name,' said the other. 'What brings you here?'

'You're wanted at the circus,' Paul answered, flushing and turning pale
again.

'All right,' said Herr Pauer, 'I'm going there. But what is up with you,
my young friend?'

'Nothing much,' Paul answered.

'No?' said Herr Pauer, buttoning himself from throat to toes, and
looking at him with a glittering eye. 'I should have thought quite
differently. Come along with me.'

Paul hung back, but he remembered the earned shilling. There was a
smell of cooking in the house, and he was suddenly ravenous at the
mere thought of food. The two turned into the road together, and walked
smartly side by side. They reached the circus, and Herr Pauer motioned
to Paul to enter.

'Come in,' he said, seeing that the youngster lingered.

Paul obeyed again, and was ushered into a small turfy space boxed in
with canvas. A few loose boards were laid upon the ground by way of
flooring. There was a table at one side, on which lay a small circular
shaving mirror, a comb, a stick of cosmetic, and two open pots of
porcelain, the larger one containing chalk, and the smaller half-filled
with rouge.

'Three minutes,' said the fat man, thrusting his head round the canvas
partition; 'and short at that.'

'All right,' returned Herr Pauer.

He unbuttoned the overcoat, and let it slip to the ground, drew off
a huge pair of rubber boots, and stood revealed in buckled pumps and
stockings, silk breeches, a white waistcoat with gilt buttons, and a
cut-away coat of light-blue cloth slashed with gold braid. He dipped his
fingers in the powdered chalk, and rubbed his face, looking hard at Paul
meanwhile, and growing ghastlier every second as the white obscured
the yellow of his face. He stooped to the fallen overcoat, took an old
hare's-foot from one of his pockets, and, dipping it in the rouge-pot,
took the shaving-glass in hand, and, with many facial contortions,
pursued his toilet, look