The Rose in the Ring Part 30

"But, father, please, I--I am getting too big," sobbed Christine.

"Too big!" he roared. "Great Scot! Why, you little whipper-snapper, you're just beginning to get big enough to look well in 'em. Too big!

Say, you're just getting a shape that's worth noticin'. I suppose that peanut aristocrat friend of yours has told you it ain't swell or proper to wear tights. He'll get his back broke some of these days, if he puts ideas into that silly head of yours. Too big! Say what's the matter with you, Christine? Why, they're just beginning to talk about what a fine shape--"

"Thomas Braddock!" exclaimed his wife furiously. The girl had dropped down on one of the seats, burying her flushed face in her arms.

"Well, confound it," he mumbled, vaguely conscious of a shamed sense of the old manhood. "I didn't mean to upset her like that. But, lookee here, Mary, I don't want no more of this nonsense about her doing a side-saddle menage act. She's a world beater at the other thing. I won't listen to this guff. That ends it. You go on doing this work with Tom Sacks, Christie. I don't give a rap whether the Jenison 'Joy' likes it or not."

Christine sprang to her feet, her face convulsed.

"I shall ask Colonel Grand to help me. He owns part of the show. His interest and mother's together are greater than yours--"

"Christine!" cried her mother, stunned.

His face went grayish white; the cigar hung loosely in his parted lips, and a thin stream of saliva oozed from the opposite corner. He tried to speak but could not. She unconsciously had struck a blow that hurt to his innermost, neglected soul.

"I'll show you who's boss of this show," he managed to articulate at last. Suddenly his knees gave way under him. He sagged heavily forward, dropping to the board seat. With one last desperate, stricken glare in his eyes, he lowered his head to his arms. A mighty sob of utter humiliation rent his body.

Mary Braddock hesitated for an instant, then impulsively laid her hand on her husband's shoulder. A wave of pity for this wretch surged into her heart.

"Don't, Thomas! Be a man! Everything will be well again, boy, if you'll only make a stand for yourself. I will help you--I will always help you, Tom. You know I--"

He shook off her pitying hand and struggled to his feet. Without a glance at her or at their terrified daughter, he flung himself from the tent and tore across the lot as though pursued by demons. By the time he found Colonel Grand and David in the animal tent, however, his blind rage had dwindled to ugly resentment; the overwhelming shame his own child had brought to the surface shrank back into the narrow selfishness from which, perhaps, it had sprung.

Five minutes before, he had wanted to kill. Now he was ready to compromise.

"Grand," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "I'm going to sell out--I'm going to get out of this. I'm going to Cincinnati to-night and look up Barnum's man.

He's ready to buy."

Colonel Grand eyed him shrewdly. He could see that something had shaken the man tremendously. The Colonel believed in strong measures. He knew precisely how to meet this man's impulses. In his time he had seen hundreds of desperate men.

"Tom, you're drunk," he announced coldly. "When you are sober you'll kick yourself for the thought. Go and lie down awhile. I won't talk with you while you're in this condition."

"Drunk?" gasped Braddock. "Bob, so help me, I'm not drunk," he almost whined.

"Then you must be crazy," observed the other, walking away.

David saw an opportunity to escape the company of both. He was edging away when Braddock stopped him.

"Say, you! I want to give you a bit of advice. If you go to putting high-sounding notions in Christie's head, I'll break every bone in your body. If you don't like the way she dresses in the ring, why do you look at her all the time?"

Further utterance on his part, or any effort David may have contemplated in resenting his attack, was prevented by the appearance of Ruby Noakes, who came running up from the main-top, waving a newspaper in her hand and crying out in the wildest excitement:

"David! David! Have you heard? Have you seen it? We've been looking for you everywhere. Here! Look! It's to-day's _Enquirer!_ See what's happened! Your uncle!"

The vanguard of the "parade" had reached the lot. Cages came creaking through the wide aperture at the end, and were wheeled skillfully into place by expert drivers. Gayly dressed hors.e.m.e.n trotted through. Every one was shouting to David.

His ears rang, everything went black before him. He could not seize the paper that Ruby held before his eyes, nor were his eyes quite capable of reading the sharp, characteristic headlines that stood out before him in the first column of the _Enquirer._ The letters danced impishly, as if to confuse him further. Jenison--Jenison--Jenison everywhere!

That was all he could see, all he could grasp.

d.i.c.k Cronk's prophecy had been fulfilled.

His uncle Frank Jenison was dead. Some one was shouting it in his ear.

There had been a deathbed confession. He was no longer a fugitive! He was exonerated--he was free!

He laughed hysterically and pressed the damp sheet to his lips. Ruby Noakes threw her arms about his neck and kissed him for joy. The voices of the half hundred people crowding about him buzzed in his ears. They were shaking hands with him, slapping his back and laughing with him, although he did not know that he laughed.

Above the hum of eager voices rose one that was discordant, hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion.

"Clear out! Skip, I say! All of you!"

Thomas Braddock was shoving the glad performers about as if they were tenpins, raging like the lions which roared their surprise at this unseemly hubbub in front of the cages.

From sheer excitement, David's head was reeling; his senses began to slip away; his legs were tottering.

Suddenly the crowd fell away. One man was facing him. The unconscious smile was still on the boy's lips as he looked into the convulsed face of Braddock. The power to dodge the blow aimed at his face had gone with his wits. He only knew that Christine's father was striking; he could only wait, with hazy indifference, for the blow to land.

"I won't have any disobedience here," roared the frantic manager, as he struck out in his b.e.s.t.i.a.l rage.

"I guess that'll stop it."

David was lying at his feet, stunned by the savage blow.

"When I say a thing I mean it," shouted Braddock, turning to the stupefied crowd. "He can't hold a jubilee in this here animal tent. Who owns this show, anyway?"

He drew back his foot to kick the prostrate boy. Half a dozen women screamed in terror.

"Don't do that, Braddock!" cried a level voice in his ear.

He whirled to face Colonel Bob Grand.

"If you kick that boy I'll shoot you," said the Colonel almost impa.s.sively.

"Do I own this show or not?" was all that Braddock could howl.

"Get him out of here," said Grand, turning to the angry circle of men.

"Sober him up or turn him over to the police."

"What!" choked out Tom Braddock, his eyes bulging. "You say this to me!"

"See here, Braddock, I kept your wife and daughter outside. They didn't see this cowardly trick of yours. You may have to explain to them why you did it. You can't explain to the rest of these people. We don't like brutes."

A dozen men crowded forward with threatening mien. Tom Braddock shrank back in mortal terror.

"Don't jump on me, boys--don't! I--I'll go out. I'll go peaceable. Let me get out where there's air. I must have been crazy."

He almost ran to the sidewall and crept into the open air. As he slunk off among the wagons, he felt himself overwhelmed by a sudden sense of desolation, a sickening realization that he had no friends, and, worse than all this,--that no one feared him!