“Who? The lasses?” asked Jinny, and to her relief the beautiful Blanche vouchsafed a smile.
“You won’t be stung if you don’t think you’ll be,” the girl explained more cordially. Then, unable to retain the proud secret longer, even from the Carrier, she burst forth, “I’m going on the stage with it.”
“What!” Jinny gasped.
“Only as a beginning, of course. ‘Bianca, The Bare-Handed Wasp-Killer,’ it’ll be on the bills.”
“Rubbidge!” came explosively from Mr. Purley. “And where will Mr. Flippance get the wapses in the winter? A circus-slut indeed—I wonder what your mother can be thinkin’ of! And what’s Mr. Honeytongue going to bill you as, Barnaby? Not champion hurdle-maker, I’ll go gaff!”
“Wait till you see me,” said Barnaby with sullen mysteriousness. “You don’t know a circus from a theaytre.”
“You’ll stick to your shackles and bolts,” said his parent grimly, “and peel the bark off, too!”
At the mention of Mr. Flippance, Jinny’s heart beat fast: she felt hovering on the verge of the revelation, and the Bianca and the stage-project rekindled her hope. But Mr. Purley’s grievance had to be worked off first. “They’re too lazy to peel the wood,” he explained to Jinny. “But that’s the main thing for hurdles—to strip ’em well against rain. Same as you was full-dressed in a pouring rain—the time it ’ud take you to dry! If you was naked now——”
“Oh, dad!” Barnaby remonstrated, to his parent’s confusion, and enjoyed this tit-for-tat.
“When do you expect Mr. Flippance, Mr. Purley?” Jinny asked him hastily.