‘You don’t mean to say you’re going about here giving yourself away for nothing?’ he managed to say at last. ‘You ain’t advertising anything, are you?’
‘No; I’ve just been taking a turn,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. ‘Now I’m going home.’
‘You aren’t!’ cried the showman, with an eagerness that was almost like agony. ‘Here, come along into my show, and you shall have half the takings. Honest, I mean it! And you shall have a money-box of your own to pass round too, if that ain’t enough,’ he added, seeing that his first offer had failed in attraction.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, assuming a mild dignity which he did not feel: ‘This is entirely my own affair. I’m not a show.’
Stupefied, bewildered, outraged, the man stood and looked at him for a moment, to see whether he really meant it. Then, his admiration turning to hate: ‘You aren’t?’ he shouted, ‘Then what the blooming hell are you? If you aren’t a show, what did you come ’ere for? Got a game of your own on, have you? We’ll soon see to that. Hi!’
He shouted with all the strength of his lungs, and continued to shout, waving his arms to attract the attention of the crowd. ‘Here’s an escaped lunatic!’ he cried.
Mr. Trimblerigg started to run. He heard the shouts of others gathering behind him, dodged round a canvas obstruction, doubled back, made a bolt through a hedge, and thus securing a good start made off across the open in the direction of home.
But in less than a minute he knew that the crowd was after him; jovial, but excited,—for the mere fact that there is something to chase kindles the blood—it hurled after him heavy-footed, a little slow in the uptake, but warming to its task at the sight of its quarry half a field away, a blister of red bouncing through the starlit night, and under it showing dimly a man’s form.
As the crowd neared him, its uncouth epithets assailed his ears. ‘Holy Moses!’ was the cry of one; ‘Go up, Elijah!’ of another. Then as they got near him and marked how desperately he ran, ‘Hullo, old fire-escape!’ gave the more modern touch which the situation required.
Mr. Trimblerigg could not run nearly so fast as the crowd; but at the level-crossing fate was kind to him. An arriving luggage-train—not without some risk—allowed him to pass in front of it, and then with its slow length held up his pursuers. But the more active ones, running down the line turned the tail-light of the guard’s van, broke fence, cut a slant and were on him again.