“Dam’ him!” swore the teamster, turning to me. “Did you ever see such an old crab?”
“Glass inside the boxes?” I suggested.
The fellow looked at me suspiciously then his lips contracted like a vise and he turned to his mules. I watched him drive through the wagon gate, and on up through the moss-covered trees to the house.
II.
THE NEXT morning I arose early, with the intention of strolling past the old Thornsdale place. I found Main Street lifeless, except for two men busily engaged in posting up the glaring announcement of the coming of:
“BARBER’S WORLD-FAMOUS 3-RING SHOW”
Pausing, I watched them swab the long multi-hued strips of paper with their paste brush and sling them upon the billboard. A small crowd of big-eyed youngsters and loafers gradually congregated about the busy circus advance men.
The most glaring and conspicuous poster represented two gorillas peering angrily out from behind the bars of their cage. Beneath it was lithographed in huge, red letters:
“MIMMIE AND HORACE ONLY WILD GORILLAS IN CAPTIVITY!”
I turned to leave—and, momentarily startled, faced what seemed to be one of the gorillas at large! Only it wore clothes. Gazing at the poster with a look of blank curiosity, was a man, short in stature, immense of shoulder and deep of chest, his hair thatching his forehead almost to his bushy eyebrows. He was hideous to look upon. I recognized him, though, after an instant, as the village half-wit, known as “Simple Will.”