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, looking from his own reflection to Paul’s face and back again with swift alternation. He pinched a bit of the cosmetic between thumb and finger, and dressed his eyelashes with it. Then he carefully drew an arched eyebrow, and paused to look at Paul again. The single brow gave him a comically elfin look, and Paul grinned; Herr Pauer drew another eyebrow, touched up his moustache, obliterated the gray upon his temples, and combed and twisted moustache and hair to his own satisfaction. Then he sat down on the table, and looked once more at his companion. Paul looked back at him, but felt his very eyeballs redden. The band beyond the screen played louder and louder. Then there came a great roar of applause, and Herr Pauer, keeping an eye on Paul till the last instant, walked away.
The fat man entered a minute later.
‘The governor says you are to go inside,’ he said, ‘and wait till his turn’s over. Here’s your bob, anyhow. A bargain’s a bargain, ain’t it?’
Paul accepted the proffered shilling, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he accompanied his guide, who pushed him through a labyrinth of props and stays, above which were ranged benches for the accommodation of the audience. They reached a spot from which they could see the whole space of the ring through a break between the benches. The fat man struck Paul as having somehow the look of keeping him in custody. But Herr Pauer appeared in the circle, and he forgot to think about that fancy. He wondered what his curiously-encountered chance-acquaintance was going to do. He had not long to wait, for two men in livery came on with a table, arranged in all respects as the conjurer’s table had been arranged in the music-hall on Saturday night, and Herr Pauer proceeded to play precisely the tricks the conjurer had played. He was just as adroit and swift and’ agile as the original, and the audience stamped and laughed and shouted.
‘Ah,’ the fat man breathed in Paul’s ear, ‘the governor hasn’t been away a month for nothing.’