Ginger was already growing restive. His muffled voice was heard from the folds of the sheets informing the other Outlaws that it was a bit thick and he hadn’t known it would be like this or he wouldn’t have done it, and anyway he was going to change with Douglas half time or he’d chuck up the whole thing.
The next exhibit was a black fox fur of William’s mother’s, to which was fortunately attached a head and several feet, and which he had surreptitiously removed from her wardrobe. This had been tied up, stuffed with waste paper and wired by William till it was, in his eyes, remarkably lifelike. As the legs, even with the assistance of wire, refused to support the body and the head would only droop sadly to the ground, it was perforce exhibited in a recumbent attitude. It bore marks of sticky fingers, and of several side slips of the scissors when William was cutting the wire, but on the whole he was justly proud of it. It bore the striking but untruthful legend:—
BEAR SHOT
BY OUTLAWS
IN RUSHER
Next came:
BLUE DOG
This was Henry’s fox terrier, generally known as Chips. For Chips the world was very black. Henry’s master mind had scorned his paint box and his water colours. Henry had “borrowed” a blue bag and dabbed it liberally over Chips. Chips had, after the first wild frenzied struggle, offered no resistance. He now sat, a picture of black despair, turning every now and then a melancholy eye upon the still enraged Smuts. But for him cats and joy and life and fighting were no more. He was abject, shamed—a blue dog.
William himself, as showman, was an imposing figure. He was robed in a red dressing-gown of his father’s that trailed on the ground behind him and over whose cords in front he stumbled ungracefully as he walked. He had cut a few strands from the fringe of a rug and glued them to his lips to represent moustaches. They fell in two straight lines over his mouth. On his head was a tinsel crown, once worn by his sister as Fairy Queen.
The show had been widely advertised and all the neighbouring children had been individually canvassed, but under strict orders of secrecy. The threats of what the Outlaws would do if their secret were disclosed had kept many a child awake at night.
William surveyed the room proudly.
“Not a bad show for a penny, I should say. I guess there aren’t many like it, anyway. Do shut up talkin’, Ginger. It’ll spoil it all, if folks hear the giant talking out of his stomach. It’s Douglas that’s got to do the giant’s talking. Anyone could see that. I say, they’re comin’! Look! They’re comin’! Along the wall!”