Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/176

 of trousers in the cage. Even the Indians standing about laughed at that.

"If you wanted these pants why didn't you ask for them like a gentleman?" he reproached the bear as he tied his coat around his waist.

He painted a sign that day and hung it on the cage: "T. Bear, gent's tailor. Apply at rear." His boyishness had come back.

He began to improve in physical condition, also. The food was excellent, and he put on a little weight. His waist remained as slim as ever, but his face was fuller and his good looks had come back. He even struck a friendship with a little Cossack, member of a troupe just brought from Europe. He made fun of his long coat, with the row of cartridge pockets across the chest, of his soft-soled boots and cocky high astrakhan hat. And the Cossack in turn would point to Tom's absurd Stetson, his high-heeled boots and leather chaps, and grin. They talked to each other with signs and smiles, and in their leisure time wandered about together. At first the Cossack could not believe that Tom spoke only his mother tongue; he tried him in German, in exquisite French, even in Italian.

"No savvy," Tom would say, cheerfully. "Now see here, Murphy—" he had christened him Murphy, "that's a cow. Say 'cow'!"

And Murphy would obediently say "cow."

Tom never knew that the little Cossack had been a great aristocrat in old Russia; that he had lived in a palace, and that serfs had bowed down to him as he passed along the road. In the evenings they would sit companionably in the door of one of the wooden huts where the show people were housed and smoke their cigarettes together.

"Friends, Murphy, you and me," Tom would point to the Cossack and then to himself. "Say 'friends.

Sometimes arm in arm they wandered about together, and because one was tall and the other short they were called Mutt and Jeff. They would climb amiably to where the dancing master worked in a great loft above the paint shop, and stand watching him. He was having a hard time.