Since it is my mission to betray the secrets confided to me, I will tell the public, the whole world, that the Craggs are not seven brothers, as we might be tempted to believe, but a family consisting of the father, six sons, and one little sister Cragg. Mr. Cragg, the father, is nearly forty-two years old, he looks like the brother of his eldest son, who is not yet twenty-four. The little girl who so bravely wears the black coat asserts that she is fourteen. I kissed her, after the performance, and complimented her most sincerely. [p305] “She is a little Australian,” said her father, smiling kindly at her. “An Australian, Mr. Cragg?” “Yes, she was born at Sydney, whilst her brothers and I were performing in New Zealand and China.” The Craggs have just returned from Pekin. They have travelled round the world, with gardenias in their buttonholes, and Barnum has thrown golden bridges across the ocean for them. I told you that the time had come for writing a monograph of the clown-king! [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [13] “I too was once a pretty little young lady.” “Come now! clown!” “You weren’t there when I was born? Well, I was. So I ought to know better than you! . . . . . . “The nurse had taken me out in a perambulator, and she sat down on the end of a bench to talk to a soldier. And then an old witch came by with a little boy. And she took me, the pretty little girl, out of the perambulator, and she put in my place, me, an ugly little boy, into the perambulator. And ever since then I’ve been an ugly little boy!” [Illustration] [p307] [Illustration: Cirque Molier] CHAPTER XII. THE PRIVATE CIRCUS. Whilst the acrobat was endeavouring to become a man of the world, the man of the world was becoming an excellent acrobat. The “governing classes” determined to have their Léotard. The gentleman quitted his stall in the circus to ascend the pad and the trapeze. [p308] Lieutenant Viaud—in literature Pierre Loti—was one of the first to achieve this metamorphosis. [Illustration] Those who have read his novels with a little attention will know the high value he places upon human beauty. _Azyadée_ particularly, contains whole pages, infinitely curious, a little disquieting, very pagan in their candour, in which [p309] gymnastics are extolled with technical knowledge and lyric warmth. M. Pierre Loti thinks, with the Platonics, that the body should be formed and embellished with as much refinement as the intelligence. Certain of the superiority of his mind, he wished that this cerebral strength should be served by the muscles of an athlete, and worked with indefatigable patience to correct in himself the weakness of nature.