"Ah-ha?" exclaimed the man. "'Neale O'Neil?' Then you do know him?"
Agnes was stricken dumb with apprehension. Her anger had betrayed Neale, she feared.
"So that's what he calls himself, is it?" repeated Sorber. "O'Neil was his father's name. I didn't think he would remember."
"We can't be talking about the same boy," blurted out Agnes, trying to cover her "bad break." "You say his name is Sorber."
"Oh, he could take any name. I thought maybe he'd call himself 'Jakeway.' He was called 'Master Jakeway' on the bills and he'd oughter be proud of the name. We had too many Sorbers in the show. Sorber, ringmaster and lion tamer—that's me, Miss. Sully Sorber, first clown—that's my half brother, Miss. William Sorber is treasurer and ticket seller—under bonds, Miss. He's my own brother. And—until a few years ago—there was Neale's mother. She was my own sister."
Agnes had begun to be very curious. And while he was talking, the girl was looking Sorber over for a second time.
He was not all bad! Of that Agnes began to be sure. Yet he wanted to beat Neale O'Neil for running away from a circus.
To tell the truth, Agnes could scarcely understand how a boy could so dislike circus life as to really want to run away from even Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. There was a glitter and tinsel to the circus that ever appealed to Agnes herself!
Personally Mr. Sorber lost none of his coarseness on longer acquaintance, but now Agnes noticed that there were humorous wrinkles about his eyes, and an upward twist to the corners of his mouth. She believed after all he might be good-natured.
Could she help Neale in any way by being friendly with this man? She could try. There was a rustic bench under the Baldwin tree.