“I heard every word you said, Nita! I think you must have gone crazy. The heat affects some like this, but I never saw it strike a carnival trouper quite so bad—” “You shut up, you little double-crossing runt!” Nita whirled toward the midget’s bed. “I may be a runt,” the midget’s voice shrilled, “but I’m in full possession of my faculties. And when I tell Winfield Bybee the threats you’ve made against this poor child, you’ll find yourself stranded in Stanton without even a grass skirt to earn a living with. And if the carnival grapevine is still working, you’ll find that no other show in the country will take you on. It will be back to the hash joints for you, Nita, and I for one think the carnival will be a neater, sweeter place without you. Get your make-up off and get into bed, Sally. And don’t worry. Nita wouldn’t have dared try to bluff a real trouper like that.” “For Gawd’s sake, are you all going to jaw all night?” a weary voice, with a flat, southern drawl demanded indignantly. “I’ve got some important sleeping to do, if I’m going to show tomorrow. Gawd, I’m so tired my bones are cracking wide open.” “Shut up yourself!” Nita snarled, slouching down upon the camp stool beside her trunk, to remove her make-up. “You hoofers don’t know what tired means. If you had to jelly all day like I do! Oh, Gawd! What a life! What a life! You’re right, Midge! It sure gets you—eighteen shows a day and this hell-fired heat.” It was Nita’s surrender, or at least her pretended surrender, to the law of the carnival—live and let live; ask no questions and answer none. In the thick silence that followed Sally tremblingly seated herself before her trunk and smeared her neck, face, arms and hands with theatrical cold cream. She was conscious that other weary girls drifted in—“the girl nobody can lift,” the albino girl, whose pink eyes were shaded with big blue goggles; the two diving girls, looking as if their diet of soda pop and bananas eaten under water did not agree with them. But she was aware of them, rather than saw them. Stray bits of their conversation forced through her own conflicting thoughts and emotions— “Where’s my rabbit foot? Gawd, I’ve lost my rabbit foot! That means a run of bad luck, sure—” “—’n I says, ‘Blow, you crazy rube. Whaddye take me for?’” “Good pickings! If this keeps up I’ll be able to grab my cakes in the privilege car—sold fifty-eight postcards today—” “Whaddye know? Gus the barker’s fell something fierce for the new kid. ’N they say Pop Bybee’s got her on percentage, as well as twelve bucks per and cakes. Some guys has all the luck—” “Who’s the sheik in the privilege car? Don’t look like no K. P. to me. Boy howdy! Hear you already staked your claim, Nita. Who is he? Millionaire’s son gettin’ an eyeful of life in raw?”