"
"I beg your pardon," was all Douglas could say, confused by the
sudden volley of unfamiliar words.
"You're kiddin' me," she said, turning her head to one side as
was her wont when assailed by suspicion; "you MUST a seen me
ride?"
"No, Miss Polly, I have never seen a circus," Douglas told her
half-regretfully, a sense of his deep privation stealing upon
him.
"What!" cried Polly, incredulously.
"Lordy no, chile; he ain't nebber seed none ob dem tings," Mandy
interrupted, as she tried to arrange a few short-stemmed posies
in a variegated bouquet.
"Well, what do you think of that!" Polly gasped. "You're the
first rube I ever saw that hadn't." She was looking at him as
though he were a curiosity.
"So I'm a rube!" Douglas shook his head with a sad, little smile
and good-naturedly agreed that he had sometimes feared as much.
"That's what we always calls a guy like you," she explained
ingenuously, and added hopefully: "Well, you MUST a' seen our
parade--all the pikers see that--IT don't cost nothin'."
"I'm afraid I must also plead guilty to the charge of being a
piker," Douglas admitted half-sheepishly, "for I did see the
parade."
"Well, I was the one on the white horse right behind the lion
cage," she began excitedly.
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