“That’s right. You’re still a rube, ain’t you? A grouch bag is a show business way of sayin’ a performer’s got a wad salted down to blow with or buy a chicken farm or, if it’s a hard-on-the-eyes dame like Nita, to catch a man with. Nita’s got a roll big enough to choke a boa constrictor. I seen her countin’ it one night when she thought she was safe. She was, too. I wouldn’t warm up to that Jane if she was the last broad in the world. Now, listen, kid, you have a good, hard cry in the dress tent before the next show and you’ll feel like a new woman. That’s me all over! Never tell a wren to turn off the faucet! Nothin’ like a good cry. I ain’t been married four times for nothin’.” Sally waited to hear no more. She rushed out of the Palace of Wonders, a frantic, fantastic little figure in purple satin trousers and gold-braided green jacket, her red-sandled feet spurning the grass-stubbled turf that divided the show tent from the dress tent. And because she was almost blinded with the tears which Gus, the barker, had sagely recommended, she collided with another figure in the “alley.” “Look where you’re going, you little charity brat, you ——” And Nita’s harsh, metallic voice added a word which Sally Ford had sometimes seen scrawled in chalk on the high board fence that divided the boys’ playground from the girls’ at the orphanage. So Nita had listened! She had been eavesdropping when Mrs. Bybee had told Sally the shameful things she had learned from Gramma Bangs about Sally’s birth. “You can’t call me that!” Sally gasped, rage flaming over her, transforming her suddenly from a timid, brow-beaten child of charity into a wildcat. Before Nita, the Hula dancer, could lift a hand to defend herself, a small purple-and-green clad fury flung itself upon her breast; gilded nails on brown-painted fingers flashed out, were about to rip down those painted, sallow cheeks like the claws of the wildcat she had become when powerful hands seized her by the shoulders and dragged her back. “What t’ell’s going on here?” Gus, the barker, panted as Sally struggled furiously, still insane with rage at the insult Nita had flung at her. “Better keep this she-devil out of my sight, Gus, or I’ll cut her heart out!” Nita panted, adjusting the grass skirt, which Sally’s furious onslaught had torn from the dancer’s hips, exposing the narrow red satin tights which ended far above her thin, unlovely knees. “I’m surprised at you, Sally,” Gus said severely, but his small eyes twinkled at her. “Next time you’re having a friendly argument with this grass-skirt artist, for Gawd’s sake settle it by pulling her hair. The show’s gotta go on and some of these rubes like her map. Don’t ask me why. I ain’t good at puzzles.” Sally smiled feebly, the passing of her rage having left her feeling rather sick and foolish. Gus’s arm was still about her shoulders, in a paternal sort of fondness, as Nita switched away, her grass skirt hissing angrily.