"I can't take his supper. I am not hungry."
But she smiled and flew away, disappearing behind the flap at his
left: a fluttering red fairy she might have been. He never forgot that
first radiant, enveloping smile.
"It is all right, my boy," said the girl's mother, also smiling. "You
_are_ hungry. We know what it is to be hungry--sometimes."
"That we do," said the contortionist, rubbing his narrow abdomen and
drawing a lugubrious mouth.
"You must be quite frozen in those wet clothes," observed Mrs.
Braddock pityingly.
"I can't stay here, ma'am," he said abruptly. The hunted look came
back into his eyes.
"He's no regular bum," said the "strong man," in the background,
addressing the pink-limbed "lady juggler."
"He's got a 'istory, that boy 'as," said the lady addressed, deeply
interested. "Makes me think o' that boy Dickens wrote about. What was
his name?"
"How should I know?" demanded the strong man. "You Britishers are
always workin' off riddles about something somebody wrote."
"What is your name?" asked the gentle-voiced woman at the boy's side.
"Where do you come from?"
He hesitated, still uncertain of his standing among these strange,
apparently friendly people.
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