I will not recount the language used by Diving Denniver as he pulled on a shabby suit of clothes and threw a funny little derby hat on the back of his head. How prosaic and odd he looked! But his language was not prosaic; it was quite as spectacular as his famous exploit--his trick, as he called it. Poor McDennison, it was all he had to sell--his trick. And sometimes he had so much trouble about it. A funny little figure he made trotting excitedly along with the officer, his derby hat on the back of his head bespeaking haste and anger. He smoked a cigarette and talked volubly and swore as he hurried away, leaving Hervey staring aghast. Such a troublesome and distracting thing it is to be a wonder of two continents. CHAPTER XXIX THE WHITE LIGHT Well at all events, Hervey might now inspect freely the sanctum of the diving wonder. His enthusiasm for the hero was not dimmed. Even the derby hat had not entirely covered up Diving Denniver. Here was just another exhibition authority. That a cop should make so free with Diving Denniver, even calling him Charlie! Hervey went into the tent, and stood looking about. Muffled by the distance he could hear the frightful monotonous music of the merry-go-round playing _Little Annie Rooney_ for the millionth time. On the red board were strewn the leavings of Diving Denniver’s supper. The smutty little oil-stove reeked of kerosene. A long, up-ended box did duty as a washstand and on this, beside a tin basin, was the photograph of a girl. A couple of candles burned and sputtered. On the tent pole hung a broken mirror. Diving Denniver’s bathrobe and his white bathing suit trimmed with gold braid lay on the converted couch just as he had thrown them in his hurry and anger. The very bathrobe, half off and half on the couch, seemed eloquent of his high disgust at the tyrannical interruption of his work. Hervey surmised that he would speak with the management of the carnival on his way out; he wondered why the two had not gone in that direction. But in truth the diving wonder did not love his public enough to consider it in his sudden dilemma. He never went up when the wind was strong. And he was not thinking of the expectant throng now. Hervey longed to don that gorgeous exhibition suit. Could he slip it on in a hurry? With him it was but one step from impulse to action and in a few seconds he had thrown off his suit and was gazing at himself in the dirty old mirror, clad in the white and gold habiliments of the international wonder. How tightly it fitted! How thrillingly professional it made him feel! What a moment in his young life!