"Don't hurt him, Jastrow. He's so awful little! Don't play rough." THE BARON (_projecting his face around a fold of skirt_): Worth her weight in go-uld--go-uld! "He's always guying me for my saving ways, Jastrow. I tell him I 'ain't got no little twenty-eight-inch wife out in San Francisco sending me pin-money. Neither am I the prize little grafter of the world. I tell him he's the littlest man and the biggest grafter in this show. Come out of there, you little devil! He thinks because I got a few hundred dollars laid by I'm a bigger freak than the one I get paid for being." Jastrow the Granite Jaw flung the crook of his walking-stick against his hip, leaning into it, the flanges of his nostrils widening a bit, as if scenting. "You old mountain-top," he said, screwing at the up-curving mustache, "who'd have thought you had that pretty a penny saved?" "I don't look to see myself live and die in the show business, Mr. Jastrow." "Now you said something, Big Tent." "There's a farm out near Xenia, Ohio, where I lay up in winter, that I'm going to own for myself one of these days. I've seen too many in this business die right in exhibition, and the show have to chip in to bury 'em, for me not to save up against a rainy day." "Lay it on, Big Tent. I like your philosophy." "That's me every time, Mr. Jastrow. I'm going to die in a little story-and-a-half frame house of my own with a cute little pointy roof, a potato-patch right up to my back steps, and my own white Leghorns crossin' my own country road to get to the other side. Why, I know a Fat in this business, Aggie Lament--" "Sure, me and the Baroness played Mexico City Carnival with Aggie Lament. Some heavy!" "Well, that girl, in her day, was one of the biggest tips to the scale this business ever seen. What happens? All of a sudden, just like that--pneumonia! Gets up out of bed, eight weeks later, skin and bones --down to three hundred and sixty-five pounds and not a penny saved. I chipped in what I could to keep her going, but she just down and died one night. Job gone. No weight. In the exhibit business, just like any other line, you got to have a long head. A Fat's got to look ahead for a thin day. Strong for a weak day. That's why I wish, Mr. Jastrow, you'd cut out that glass-eating feature of yours." "How much you got, Airy-Fairy? Lemme double your money for you!" "She's worth her weight in gold." "Lemme double it!" "Like fun I will. A spendthrift like you!" "Which way you going?" "We always go home by the beach. Shapiro made it a rule that the Bigs and Littles can't ever show themselves on Ocean Avenue." "Come on, you little flea; I'll ride you up the beach on my shoulder." "Oh, Mr. Jastrow, you--you going to walk home with me--and--Baron?" "Come on was what I said."