So Dan disappeared for a moment, and presently returned with the news that Murray had given him permission to take the others to supper as his guests.
“He’s mighty nice to you, isn’t he?” asked Nelson sarcastically.
That supper was one of the ever-remembered features of the trip. Jerry found places for them at one end of the long table, and they looked about them with frank curiosity. Overhead naphtha torches flared, throwing deep shadows on the pine boards that formed the table. The sides of the tent were up here and there, and from without came the sound of the crickets, the voices of Mr. Foley and his companion at the stoves, and the scrape and clash of pans and utensils. Inside, the air became hot and heavy under the shallow curve of canvas, the tin plates and cups glimmered, the steam drifted up from the hot viands, and the noise was at first deafening.
This was the first table, Jerry informed them, and accommodated the performers and the “staff,” the “staff” being the management. The canvasmen, drivers, animal men, and the other hands ate later at a second table. Across from the Four sat the ringmaster, between a pleasant-faced and rather elderly woman and a thin youth with pale cheeks whom Nelson recognized as the leader of the “family” of trick skaters. He wondered who the woman was, and would have been wondering yet, doubtless, had not his neighbor, a good-natured little Irishman, come to his assistance.
“You’re frinds of the laddie that did the jomp?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Nelson. “We four are together. We’re taking a walking trip along the island.”
“Is thot so? Well, I didn’t see the jomp myself, but I heard the boys talkin’ about it. ’Twas a pretty lape, they said.”
“Yes; but I was awfully scared. I was afraid he’d miss the tank.”
“I suppose so. Is he goin’ to shtay wid the show?”
“Oh, no; he only joined for to-day.” Nelson told briefly of the robbery and their subsequent adventures, and the little Irishman chuckled enjoyably.