"Skip Riley is not his name at all."
"That so? What is it? Did you learn?"
"I was talking to a lady from Strongburg, one of those who got him a job on the fire department."
"What did she know about him?"
"She said that she was appointed a committee of one by the Ladies' Aid Society over there to look up the new fireman's career."
"And I suppose she ran onto some hot stuff?"
"It seems that the ex-convict, Skip Riley, had been a circus performer once upon a time, before he took to being a burglar."
"Was burglary the crime for which he was put in prison?"
"Yes, so she says. He was an aëronaut and acrobat."
"Good! And what was his stage name? Did she say?"