Pretty soon he just blurted out, “How’d you happen to hit this job, Chandler?”
Jib Jab said, “Oh, I don’t know; it’s a long story. It’s a pretty good job when you want to lie low.”
“Lie low, huh? Why, what’s the matter?” Harry asked.
Cracky, I never saw Jib Jab so serious before. He said, “Oh, I was just one of the heroes that didn’t get a job, that’s all. I’m a happy-go-lucky.”
“Same here,” Harry said, and he just kept looking at him, awful sharp and searching, kind of.
“I came back from France broke.”
“Same here,” Harry said.
“And I just thought I’d try to pull together a bit before I hit the trail for home,” Jib Jab went on. “I had a little over two hundred dollars to bring home to my old dad, but they relieved me of it in a sailors’ dance hall over in Brest.”
“Live up near Plattsburg, eh?”
“Yop, and I started home as soon as I was mustered out, but didn’t make it. Just couldn’t face the old folks—busted. I tried to get a job in Albany, in Poughkeepsie; nothing doing. Worked for a couple of days for a farmer over here in Elm Center, then hit the circus. Circus is a great place when you’re down and out. Ever work in a circus?”