So I asked mine—fifteen guineas for four nights' hire.... To look at that human animal you might have supposed the actual guineas had lodged in his throat. It may be that Shylock's was a more modest bargain. I cannot say.
At first thought it had seemed to me a monstrous sum, but at that time I was ignorant of what a really fine midget fetched. It was but half my old quarterly allowance, with £2 over for Adam. I should need every penny of it. And I had not come selling my soul without having first decided on its value. The showman fumed and blustered. But I sat close on Chakka's abandoned stage, perfectly still, making no answer; finding, moreover, in Adam an unexpected stronghold, for the wider gawked his frightened eyes at the showman's noise and gesticulations, the more resolved I became. With a last dreadful oath, the showman all but kicked a hole in my cage.
"Take me away, Adam," I cried quaveringly; "we are wasting this gentleman's time."
I smiled to myself, in spite of the cold tremors that were shaking me all over; with every nerve and sinew of his corpulent body he was coveting me: and with a curse he at last accepted my terms. I shrugged my shoulders, but still refused to stir a finger until our contract had been written down in black and white. Maybe some tiny love-bird of courage roosts beneath every human skull, maybe my mother's fine French blood had rilled to the surface. However that may be, there could be no turning back.
He drew out a stump of pencil and a dirty envelope. "That, my fine cock," he said to Adam, as he wrote, "that's a woman; and you make no mistake about it. To hell with your fine ladies."
It remains, if not the most delicate, certainly one of the most substantial compliments I ever earned in my life.
"That's that," he pretended to groan, presenting me with his scrawl. "Ask a shark for a stamp, and if ruined I must be—ruined I am."
I leapt to my feet, shook out my tumbled finery, smiled into his stooping face, and tucked the contract into my bodice. "Thank you, sir," I said, "and I promise you shan't be ruined if I can help it." Whereupon Adam became exceedingly merry, the danger now over.
Such are the facts concerning this little transaction, so far as I can recall them; yet I confess to being a little incredulous. Have I, perhaps, gilded my side of the bargaining? If so, I am sure my showman would be the last person to quarrel with me. I am inclined to think he had taken a fancy to me. Anyhow I had won—what is, perhaps, even better—his respect. And though the pay came late, when it was no longer needed, and though it was the blackest money that ever touched my fingers, it came. And if anybody was the defaulter, it was I.
There was no time to lose. My gipsy woman was sent for from the shooting gallery. I shook hands with her; she shook hands with Adam, who was then told to go about his business and to return to the tent when the circus was over. The three of us, showman, woman, and I, conferred together, and with extreme cordiality agreed what should be my little part in the performance. The booth in which we had made our bargain was hastily prepared for my "reception." Its table was to be my daïs. A loose flap of canvas was hung to one side of it to screen me off from prying eyes when I was not on show. My only dangerous rival, it appeared, was the Spotted Boy.