“Nincompoops! They’ll never be ready for to-night,” said Miss Flippance, acknowledging his existence again. “Would to heaven dad had gone up to London to see the Exhibition—and not hustled us like this.”
“But he was there at the opening.”
Miss Flippance stared at him. “Were you with him?”
“No such luck. I didn’t even see the stuffed elephant.”
“Has he stuffed you with that?” Miss Flippance emitted a mirthless laugh, and Will looked at once angry and sheepish. “Not that way, you hulking brutes! Turn ’em round. . . . And besides, it’s ridiculous to give Hamlet. High art don’t take south of Scarborough.”
“Well, I saw Othello in London last week,” he contradicted sharply—she should see he was no mere gull: “And the pit was packed.”
“Yes—in April. But try it in the dog-days.”
“Too warm, eh?” he sniggered. She turned away as from an idiot. That hurt him more than having swallowed her father’s royal rodomontade. Did she then think the plot of Othello glacial? Or had she no sense of humour? Yes, that was it—the sex had been denied the sense of humour. True, it shrieked with laughter if you tickled it, but the tickling must be physical. Ah, she was at it again, bustling and bullying the superior sex. Well, he wasn’t going to paste bills under her. Let that lazy liar of a Showman do his own dirty work.
“Good afternoon,” he called out huffily, and walked out of the great tent in a far less romantic mood than when he had entered it. And then, as he came through the opening in the canvas, his eyes nearly started out of their sockets: Daniel Quarles’s cart stood outside the tent, and there, perched on the driving-board, holding the reins, and calmly instructing the shirt-sleeved yokels to deliver the big drum to Miss Flippance, was the girl of the parcel-shed!