Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/121

 One keen glance at them showed him plainly enough that these common and earthly looking persons were not the Great Beings who guided rocking and lurching Roman chariots, and fluttered around rings in crimson tights and spangled breech-cloths, and spun about trapezes in pink and gold and blue, daringly defying danger and death, and setting at naught, as the bill-boards distinctly said, all and every law of gravitation! They were the same as other folks, only hungrier and wearier looking, thought Lonely, as he still waited awkwardly, loath to take his departure into the mere light of common day.

"Catch, Starry Eyes," cried a fat woman with yellow hair, as she tossed a hot biscuit at his head. This he caught on the fly, neatly, and straightway tucked securely down in his deepest blue denim overalls' pocket. Being a real and genuine circus biscuit, it was, obviously, something too consecrated to eat.

The fat woman laughed at this, and a moment later the whole table seemed smiling at Lonely, who drew back a little, abashed. Yet behind the cheery and grateful unconcern of his answering grin he had decided that at the