David flushed. "Why did she call me that?" he asked.
"Because you were lonesome, and there is nothink so lonesome as a jack-snipe. Leastwise, that's wot she says. She asked me if I'd ever seen a jack-snipe on a wet, dreary day, a-standing on a sandbar, all alone like and forlorn. She said she always felt so sorry for the poor little cuss—no, she didn't say cuss either. What was it she said, Casey? You was there."
"She said 'thing,'" said Casey briefly.
"Right, my lad. Thing it was. Well, wot she says goes in this 'ere aggergation, so from now on you are just Jack Snipe." He lowered his voice. "There won't nobody call you David or Jenison after this, my boy. It's too dangerous."
David was thoughtful. "Do you mean to say," he said, after a pause, "that every person in this show knows who I really am?"
"You bet your life they do," said Casey.
"And what I am wanted for?"
"Certain. Wot's that got to do with it?"
"Do they think I'm—I'm guilty?"
"Well, I reckon most of 'em do," said the contortionist blandly. "But," he added in some haste, "they don't give a dang for a little thing like that."