So Nelson wrote a demand for fifty dollars “immediately,” underscoring the “immediately,” although, as Bob pointed out, the operator couldn’t send italics.
“I don’t care,” replied Nelson. “It gives me satisfaction.”
They left Dan and, after sauntering around the streets of the little village for a while, returned to the circus field in the wake of the parade. On the way they paused to admire a lithograph of “Donello, Prince of High Divers, in his Perilous Plunge of Fifty Feet into Thirty-six Inches of Water!”
“But, look here,” objected Tom, “how many of him are there?”
Sure enough, according to the lithograph there were three distinct Donellos. One was poised on the little platform at the summit of the ladder, while two others were turning somersaults on the way down to the tiny tank.
“Oh, that’s just poetic license,” explained Nelson. “It shows him at various points in the trip. It’s the same chap, see? Blue-black hair, pink tights, and a green velvet thingumbob around the middle of him.”
“All the same,” answered Tom, “it’s a lie, that picture.”
“As far as I can see,” responded Bob sadly, “circus posters are most all lies. I guess if they just showed what there really was to see no one would go.”
“Sure,” said Nelson. “Besides, they’re mighty interesting lies. I suppose a circus man’s got as much right to tell lies in his pictures as authors have to write them in books.”
“It isn’t the same,” objected Tom. “Authors don’t tell lies to get your money out of you, and circuses do.”