It spread to the throng of crooks, pickpockets
and fakirs that followed the show; it reached to the freaks in the
sideshow. And not one among them all would have betrayed him by sign
or deed. They stuck together like leeches, these good and bad nomads,
and they asked few questions. And so it was that David Jenison made
his first appearance as a clown in the sawdust ring.
CHAPTER IV
A STKANGER APPEAES ON THE SCENE
An hour after the conclusion of the performance David was on the road
once more; not, as before, afoot and weary, but safely ensconced in
one of the huge, lumbering "tableau" wagons used for the
transportation of canvas and perishable properties. The boss
canvasman, not the hardened brute that he appeared to be, had stored
him away in the damp interior of the ponderous wagon, first providing
him with dry blankets on which he could sleep with some security and
no comfort. There was little space between his mountainous, shifting
bed and the roof of the van; and there would have been no air had not
the driver of the four-horse team obligingly opened a narrow window
beneath the seat on which he rode.
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