Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/237



“That’s right, Aunt Ju-ju, argue it out!” she advised.

Miss Trueman winced. She had never accustomed herself to those senseless monosyllables that parodied her name; nor could she understand the frame of mind that found them preferable to the comfortable “Aunt Jule” of the old days.

“Ju-ju!” Strips of unwholesome flesh-colored paste, sugar-sprinkled, dear to her childish heart but loathed by a maturer palate, rose to her mind. There had been another haunting recollection: for months she had been unable to define it perfectly, though it had always brought a thrill of disgust with its vague appeal. One day she caught it and told them.

“It was that dreadful creature Mr. Barnum exhibited,” she declared, “that we didn’t allow the children to go to see—Jo-jo, the Dog-faced Boy! You remember?”