“We’ll get out of this place as soon as pullin’ the braid and pushin’ the webbin’ will do it,” he said to Peak as the van turned into the dingy shore street of Square Harbour. “Ev’ry one here has got eyes hung out on their cheeks like lobsters have,” he went on, glowering at the people on the sidewalks. His amiability had departed suddenly.
“What ye goin’ to do to old Tarfinger?” asked Peak, who fully understood what the showman was thinking about.
“It’s goin’ to take a good deal of prayer and meditation to plan it out, Sime,” replied Hiram, slowly and menacingly. “Do you think that many of them critters that stood round there knew who I was?”
“Ain’t your name on this cart bigger’n a fat woman sign on a side-show banner?”
Hiram ground his teeth.
“There was a man kicked me once,” he related slowly, “and there wasn’t no outsiders see him do it, either. And that man—but I ain’t any hand to brag, Sime. All I say is that such a case as this needs prayer and meditation, and a lot of it.”
They rode on in silence. There was no sound from within.
“We’ll stop up-country at some farmer’s place and bait,” said Hiram at last, “and we’ll get into Palermo after dark. The invisible lady trick will be played all right and there’s that much to say, but—I never was kicked before in the face and eyes of a public audience, to have it talked about from Clew to Erie and laughed over, and him get away! Oh, it ain’t no common case, Sime. Don’t talk to me. Let me meditate.”
Therefore the ride along the highway that swept up around the broad Inlet was one devoted wholly to introspection, both without and within the rumbling van.