That night, however, offered no further opportunity for making acquaintances. Indeed, he was made more and more conscious of the fact that in the circus there existed an almost unbreakable line of caste. There were the performers and the attendants. The attendants were kept in their places. They did not mingle with the performers; they were distinctly considered beneath them.
“Oh, well,” Johnny said to himself, “if that’s that, why I’ll have to get to be a performer, that’s all.”
But when he came to think it over soberly, he could imagine no means by which this end could be attained.
If he had but known it, the opportunity was to present itself in a not far distant time, and in a manner as startling as it was sudden.
In one thing that night he was extremely fortunate—he succeeded in securing a position where he could get a clear view of the performance of two very interesting persons, Gwen, the Queen, and Allegretti, the man who boxed the bear. The contrast of the two stood out in his thoughts long after the performers had moved out of the ring. Gwen was wonderful. Johnny was sure he had never seen anyone to equal her in all his life. Light as a feather, waving her delicate silk parasol here and there, she tripped across the invisible wire. Yet, fairy-like as she was, every move spoke of strength, of well developed and perfectly trained muscles. She wore the accustomed grease paint of the ring, but Johnny did not need to be told that beneath this there lay the glow of a healthy skin.
“She’s all right,” he decided. “I’ll wager she’s an American. Only an American girl could be like that.”
Through the quarter of an hour during which Gwen was the center of attention of the vast throng, he watched her. The breathless leaps in air, the light, tripping dance from post to post, the bow, the smile—he saw it all and breathed hard as she at last danced out of the ring.
“If she has the ring, it’s going to be hard to get it,” he decided. “If another could be bought, and I had the money, I’d rather buy it and let her keep the old one, but there’s only one in all the world, and if she has it I must get it from her. Gwen, big, wonderful American girl, I’m for you, but I’m also a hard hearted detective, and I’m on your trail.”
The antics of the swarthy foreigner who boxed the bear were as ludicrous and grotesque as Gwen’s act had been exquisite.
“Clumsy lobster!” Johnny exclaimed, after watching him for five minutes. “What he doesn’t know about boxing would fill an encyclopedia, and if he didn’t have a good natured bear, he’d get his head knocked off. All he’s good for is to dance with a bear on the street and hold out a tin cup for nickels. Nevertheless, Allegretti, old boy, I’ve got to scrape up an acquaintance with you someway, for that’s on the road to the heart of Gwen, though how she can stand the garlic and the look of your ugly mug long enough to box a round with you is more than I can understand.”