Francis tried again. This time the ring encircled a matchbox, “flat on.”
“Hard luck,” said the lady again.
“What’s the matter now?” the children asked, baffled.
“Hoop has to be red side up,” said she. So she scored. Now they went to the other side and had another penn’orth of hoops from the other too clean young woman. And the same thing happened. Only on the second winning she said:
“Hard luck. Hoops have to be blue side up.”
It was Bernard’s blood that was up. He determined to clear the board.
“Blue side up, is it,” he said sternly, and took another penn’orth. This time he brought down a tin pin tray and a little box which, I hope, contained something. The girl hesitated and then handed over the prizes. “Another penn’orth of hoops,” said Bernard, warming to the work.
“Hard luck,” said she. “We don’t give more than two penn’orth to any one party.”
The prizes were not the kind of things you care to keep, even as trophies of victory—especially when you have before you the business of rescuing a Mermaid. The children gave their prizes to a small female bystander and went to the shooting gallery. That, at least, could have no nonsense about it. If you aimed at a bottle and hit it it would break. No sordid self-seeking custodian could rob you of the pleasant tinkling of the broken bottle. And even with a poor weapon it is not impossible to aim at a bottle and hit it. This is true—but at the shooting gallery the trouble was not to hit the bottles. There were so many of them and they were so near. The children got thirteen tinkling smashes for their fourteen shots. The bottles were hung fifteen feet away instead of thirty. Why? Space is not valuable at the fair—can it be that the people of Sussex are such poor shots that thirty feet is to them a prohibitive distance?
They did not throw for coconuts, nor did they ride on the little horses or pull themselves to dizzy heights in the swings. There was no heart left in them for such adventures—and besides everyone in the fair, saving themselves and the small female bystander and the hoop girls, was dirtier than you would believe possible. I suppose Beachfield has a water supply. But you would have doubted it if you had been at the fair. They heard no laughter, no gay talk, no hearty give-and-take of holiday jests. A dull heavy silence brooded over the place, and you could hear that silence under the shallow insincere gaiety of the steam roundabout.