"Not much of a show," he repeated. "The young uns ull crack up most anything as comes along. But that's their stoopidness. Never zeed nothing better. Law bless 'e, this ain't a patch on the shows I've a' zeen in my day. Cock-fightings, and fellows—wi' a lot er money laid on 'em by the gentry too—a-pounding of each other till there weren't an inch above the belt of 'em as weren't bloody. And the Irish giant, and dwarfs 'ad over from France. They tell me most Frencheys's made that way. Ole Boney 'isself wasn't much of a one to look at. And I can mind a calf wi' two 'eads-'ud eat wi' both mouths at once, and all the food 'ud go down into the same belly. And a man wi' no arms, never 'ad none, by what they used to tell me——"
"Ah!" Richard exclaimed quickly.
"No, never 'ad none, and yet 'ud play the drum wi' 'is toes and fire off a horse pistol. Lor, you would 'er laughed to 'av zeen 'im. 'E made fine sport for the folks 'e did."
Jackie Deeds had recovered his good-humour. He peered up into the boy's face again maliciously, and broke into cheerless, creaking merriment.
"Gor a'mighty 'as 'is jokes too," he said. "I'm thinking, by the curous made creeturs 'e sends along sometimes."
"Chifney," Richard called imperatively. "Chifney, are you nearly ready? We ought to get home. There's a storm coming up."
"Well, we shall get that matter of the saddle done right enough, Sir Richard," the trainer remarked presently, as the carriage bowled up the street. "Don't be too free with the whip, sir.—Steady, steady there.—Mind the donkey-cart.—Bear away to the right. Don't let 'em get above themselves. Excuse me, Sir Richard."
He leaned forward and laid both hands quietly on the reins.
"Look here, sir," he said, "I think you'd better let Henry lead the horses past all this variety business."
The end of the street was reached. On either hand small red or white houses trend away in a broken line along the edge of a flat, grass common, backed by plantations of pollarded oak trees. In the foreground, fringing the broad roadway, were booths, tents, and vans. And the staring colours of these last, raw reds and yellows, the blue smoke beating down from their little stove-pipe chimneys, the dirty white of tent flaps and awnings, stood out harshly in a flare of stormy sunlight against the solid green of the oaks and uprolling masses of black-purple cloud.