“I presume you don’t hardly ever long for a home in one place, Miss Syrilla,” he began, with his eye fixed on her arm just above the elbow.
“Well, believe me, dearie,” said Syrilla, “you don’t want to think that just because I travel with a side-show I don’t long for the refinements of a true home just like other folks. Some folks think I’m easy to see through and that I ain’t nothin’ but fat and appetite, but they’ve got me down wrong, Mr. Gubb. I was unfortunate in gettin’ lost from my father and mother when a babe, but many is the time I’ve said to Zozo, ‘I got a refined strain in my nature.’ Haven’t I, Zozo?”
“You say it every time we begin to rag you about fallin’ in love with every new thin man you see,” said Princess Zozo. “You said it last night when we was joshin’ you about Mr. Gubb here.”
Syrilla colored, but Mr. Gubb thrilled joyously.
“Just the same, dearie,” Syrilla said to Princess Zozo, “I’ve got myself listed right when I say I got a refined nature. I’ve got all the instincts of a real society lady and sometimes it irks me awful not to be able to let myself loose and bant like—”
“Pant?” asked Mr. Gubb.
“Bant was the word I used, Mr. Gubb,” Syrilla replied. “Maybe you wouldn’t guess it, lookin’ at me shovelin’ in the eatables this way, but eatin’ food is the croolest thing I have to do. It jars me somethin’ terrible. Yes, dearie, what I long for day and night is a chance to take my place in the social stratums I was born for and bant off the fat like other social ladies is doin’ right along. I don’t eat food because I like it, Mr. Gubb, but because a lady in a profession like mine has got to keep fatted up. My outside may be fat, Mr. Gubb, but I got a soul inside of me as skinny as any fash’nable lady would care to have, and as soon as possible I’m goin’ to quit the road and bant off six or seven hundred pounds. Would you believe it possible that I ain’t dared to eat a pickle for over seven years, because it might start me on the thinward road?”
“I presume to suppose,” said Mr. Gubb politely, “that if you was to be offered a home that was rich with wealth and I was to take you there and place you beside your parental father, you wouldn’t refuse?”
Mr. Gubb awaited the reply with eagerness. He tried to remain calm, but in spite of himself he was nervous.
“Watch me!” said Syrilla. “If you could show me a nook like that, you couldn’t hold me in this show business with a tent-stake and bull tackle. But that’s a rosy dream!”