Mr. Bill Smookins was an exceedingly hard-featured man, of no recognizable age. Externally, he was blue overalls and greasy tar.
Abbott grasped Bill's hand, and inquired about business.
"Awful pore, sense Fran lef' the show," was the answer, accompanied by a grin that threatened to cut the weather-beaten face wide open.
Fran beamed. "Mr. Smookins knew my mother—didn't you, Bill? He was awful good to me when I was a kid. Mr. Smookins was a Human Nymph in those days, and he smoked and talked, he did, right down under the water—remember, Bill? That was sure-enough water—oh, he's a sure- enough Bill, let me tell you!"
Bill intimated, as he slowed down the engine, that the rheumatism he had acquired under the water, was sure-enough rheumatism—hence his change of occupation. "I was strong enough to be a Human Nymph," he explained, "but not endurable. Nobody can't last many years as a Human Nymph."
Abbott indicated his companion—"Here's one that'll last my time."
The wheel stopped. He and Fran were barred into a seat.
"And now," Fran exclaimed, "it's all ups and downs, just like a moving-picture of life. Why don't you say something, Mr. Ashton? But no, you can keep still—I'm excited to death, and wouldn't hear you anyway. I want to do all the talking—I always do, after I've been in the cage. My brain is filled with air—so this is the time to be soaring up into the sky, isn't it! What is your brained filled with?— but never mind. We'll be just two balloons—my! aren't you glad we haven't any strings on us—suppose some people had hold!—I, for one, would be willing never to go down again. Where are the clouds?—Wish we could meet a few. Down there on the solid earth—oh, down there the first things you meet are reasons for things, and people's opinions of how things look, and reports of what folks say. And up here, there's nothing but the moon—isn't it bright! See how I'm trembling—always do, after the lions. Now, Abbott, I'll leave a small opening for just one word—"
"I'll steady you," said Abbott, briefly, and he took her hand. She did not appear conscious of his protecting clasp.
"I never see the moon so big," she went on, breathlessly, "without thinking of that night when it rolled along the pasture as if it wanted to knock us off the foot-bridge for being where we oughtn't. I never could understand why you would stay on that bridge with a perfect stranger, when your duty was to be usher at the camp-meeting! You weren't ushering me, you know, you were holding my hand—I mean, I was holding your hand, as Miss Sapphira says I shouldn't. What a poor helpless man—as I'm holding you now, I presume! But I laughed in meeting. People ought to go outdoors to smile, and keep their religion in a house, I guess. I'm going to tell you why I laughed, for you've never guessed, and you've always been afraid to ask—"