In her room the Lady Superior gave me some supper, she eating with me as heartily as if she had not had a dish of beef à la mode with roast onions less than half an hour before. She explained to me that the circus people never take their supper till after the performance. “It makes ’em lazy and not up to their work,” she said. When her husband, the Grand Panjandrum, came in, she introduced me to him and told him about my accomplishments. He slapped his thigh with his palm and exclaimed:— “That’s superb! We’ve just lost Mademoiselle Fifine, our ‘matchless female equestrienne,’ and as we have advertised her everywhere, the audiences are threatening to shoot me every time I go into the ring as clown. You see, audiences don’t like to be disappointed. I’ll let you show me your paces in the morning, and if you can do the stunts, I shall engage you, and you shall appear as Mademoiselle Fifine to-morrow afternoon and evening.” I objected that I mustn’t be seen in that town, lest I be recognised, whereupon he broke into a laugh and exclaimed:— “Recognised! Why, your own mother won’t know you when the dresser gets you into Mademoiselle Fifine’s finery, and daubs your face with grease paint, and plasters it with powder. Bridget’s clothes will just fit you.” “Who is Bridget?” I asked, as I had not heard of that person before. The manager laughed, and answered:— “Bridget? Why, she was Mademoiselle Fifine, you know. She wasn’t well up to the business, but she was plucky and took risks, so she got a very bad fall that broke her up, and she had to quit and go to a hospital. She was a good girl, and I am paying her expenses. If she don’t die of her injuries, I’ll pay her board somewhere as long as she lives. For she will never ride again.” Then a sudden thought occurred to the Grand Panjandrum. “Tell you what, Sis,” he said. “Why can’t we drive down to the tent, and you let me see you ride a little to-night? You see, it will be a sort of life insurance to me; for if we give the show again without Fifine in it, some o’ them wild Texans will shoot me, like as not. If you can do the trick, I’ll get a printer to work, and early in the morning we’ll come out with a flaming announcement of ‘The Return of Mademoiselle Fifine, the Matchless Equestrienne of the Universe,’ and you can go into the ring at the afternoon performance.” I didn’t like the lies he intended to tell, and I said so. I wanted him to give me some other ring name, but he said that all his big, coloured posters had Mademoiselle’s name on them, with coloured pictures of her on horseback, and that he couldn’t afford to throw the posters away, even if there had been any printers in Texas who could make new ones, as there were not. “Besides,” he added, “you’ll be Mademoiselle Fifine, just as much as Bridget was. Everybody knows that the name is fictitious. All they want is to see good riding, and if you can’t ride as well as poor Bridget did, I couldn’t think of engaging you.”