Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/95

 others followed them in, but the greater part of the crowd lingered outside to stare at the huge, crudely Painted banners, and to listen to the gifted barker.

Inside, a series of platforms circled the small room, and on these platforms were ranged the strange people, the midgets, the tall men, the sword-swallowers, and ladies bearded and tattooed. Some of them looked merely bored, but most of them wore a superior expression of conscious pride, considering themselves, indubitably, of some importance in the world, contemptuous of that part of the public which did not share their peculiar perfections. Their costumes ran to red and blue and gold and pink, tricked out with tinsel and machine-made lace. All were retailing photographs of their strange selves, and a few sold booklets. Occasionally, these favoured folk conversed with one another, spoke a few words, casual and solemn at best, for it could be seen that they had nothing of importance to say to one another or to the world, nothing, save: Here I am; look at me; I am a brilliant exception on this sphere where you are conspicuously and defectively normal. You have only two legs, the three-legged man seemed to assert sneeringly, while the lady with The Last Supper tattooed on her back and Rock of Ages on her belly was obviously a trifle impatient with such women as were forced to wear mere clothes by way of decorating their bodies.

Campaspe noted these impressions, while the