“I guess I am very well, thank you,� responded the giantess. She had a plaintive, mooing voice, and despite the usage of a public career, she seemed little less bashful than Mr. Lanter.
“Do you like N’York?� Mr. Lanter inquired.
“Well,� Miss Minota returned, “I guess I do!� She sighed as she continued: “But one place is much the same as another to you—when you don’t see anythin’ more of it than the inside of the hotel where you happen to be located, and the inside of the hall where you chance to be exhibitin’.�
“Why, now, that’s a shame!� said Mr. Lanter, growing red with sympathy. “Don’t your friends take you around some, when you feel you’d like to go?�
“I suppose they’d be real pleased,� said Miss Minota, after an instant’s consideration, “if I didn’t attract so much attention. But when you’re too big to go on the cars, like other folk, or pass along the sidewalk without blockin’ it——� She shrugged her enormous shoulders with a little air of fatigue, and the gentleman in evening dress, who officiated as showman, gave her the signal to move. “Good-afternoon!� she said graciously, and passed on.
But Mr. Lanter’s brain was surging with sympathy. “My gracious!� he cried to himself, “is it possible that that splendid creature isn’t happy?� A vague look of gentle melancholy was certainly floating on the surface of those limpid china-blue eyes. He breathed through his nose and clenched his fists, one of which already bore a proof impression of Mr. Goter’s projecting front tooth. And the very next half-holiday found him waiting at the side-door through which professionals found entrance to the back scenes of Kneeman’s. One or two sallow, cropped men in furred overcoats passed in, one of them in company with a black-eyed, vivacious, middle-aged woman, who conversed with her fingers, her shoulders, and every muscle of her face—and in whom Mr. Lanter recognized Goter’s houri. Then a vehicle like a hotel-omnibus, only taller and shinier, drawn by a pair of stout horses, pulled up by the curb; two men, moustached, and dressed in a kind of buff uniform faced with red (Mr. Lanter recognized it as the livery common to the attendants of the Musée), got down from the box seat and opened the omnibus door.... Mr. Lanter’s heart thumped wildly as a colossal foot and ankle, appareled in a pink silk stocking and rosetted black satin shoe, cautiously descended to the ground, and the rest of Miss Minota followed by gradual instalments until the giantess stood upright on the pavement, her nine feet of height handsomely accentuated by an umbrageous hat, with a plume of nodding feathers which might have served for the central ornament of a canopy of state. She inclined this tremendous headgear in gracious recognition of Mr. Lanter. Mr. Lanter took off his hat with his best manner, and boldly stepped forward.
A large pink flush invaded the giantess’s immense cheeks, previously of a pale or dough-colored complexion. “Won’t you walk in a minute?� she said, in a timid, fluttering way. Then, not without difficulty, she went in at the side-door, Mr. Lanter followed, the attendants mounted to their seats, and the large shiny omnibus drove away.
The sensation of moving and speaking in a dream bore heavily upon Mr. Lanter as he followed the tall, stooping figure of the giantess up a short flight of stairs and through what seemed to be a labyrinth of winding passages, each of which seemed more dark and dusky than the preceding one, and conveyed a stronger olfactory impression of gas, mice, and turpentine. But the labyrinth ended in a vast echoing chaos of shaky canvas scenes and machinery, which Miss Minota introduced as the stage. The iron curtain that separated the stage from the auditorium was down, and they stood together in the midst of a heterogeneous jumble of properties among which Mr. Lanter recognized the plank-and-ladder of the equilibrists, the gilded props and rubber-covered block-tackle used by the tight-rope dancer, the belled and ribboned saddles employed by the Centaur Family, and Miss Minota’s mediæval throne, flanked by the gilded weights employed in her exhibition of manual strength.
“Won’t you——� Involuntarily he pointed to the gaudy throne-seat.
“Well,� said the giantess, “I don’t know but what I will sit down—just a minute.� Seated, her large round face and china-blue, rather foolish eyes were above the level of Mr. Lanter’s as he stood before her. Certainly, but for the suet dumpling pallor of her fair complexion and a prevailing flabbiness, the result of insufficient exercise, Miss Minota would have been good-looking. “I guess I ought to thank you for being so polite!� she said, and her tone and accent were homely as those of the New England village-folk among whom Mr. Lanter had been raised. “I guess you thought I acted like I was silly just now; but boys do scare me so.... If there’s one thing more than another I dasn’t face, it’s a boy; and you bet boys know it, and lay along for me—the nasty little things! So there’s another reason why I can’t go round like other folks—even if the management wouldn’t object to my givin’ the show away!� She folded her immense hands upon her knees and looked placidly at Mr. Lanter.