"I tell you, Mr. Gubb," Mr. Medderbrook said, as they entered the
side-show, "if you have indeed found my daughter you have made me a
happy man. You cannot know how lonesome my life has been. Now, which
is she?"
"She is the female lady in the pink satin dress on that platform,"
said Mr. Gubb.
Mr. Medderbrook looked toward Syrilla and gasped.
"Why, that--that's the Fat Woman! That's the Fat Woman of the
side-show!" he exclaimed. "I thought--I--why, my daughter wouldn't be
a Fat Woman in a side-show!"
"But she is," said Mr. Gubb.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Mr. Medderbrook.
For years Mr. Medderbrook had retained a memory of his daughter
as he had seen her last, a tender babe in long clothes. As he rode
toward West Higgins, however, he had thought about his daughter and
he had revised his conception of her. She was older now, of course,
and he had finally settled the matter by deciding that she would be
a dainty slip of a girl--probably a tight-rope walker or one of the
toe-dancers in the Grand Spectacle, or perhaps even engaged as the
Ten-Thousand-Dollar Beauty. But a Fat Lady! Mr. Medderbrook walked
toward Syrilla. Every eye in the tent was upon him. There was utter
silence except for Syrilla's happy sobbing.
"Shess!" said a voice suddenly. "You bet I vos here! Und I vant my
money! Years I haf been collecding dot bill, und still you owe me. Now
I come, and you pay me all vot you owe or I make troubles!"
The voice came from outside the tent, and with surprising agility
Detective Gubb dived under the platform and wriggled under the canvas
wall.
"I don't owe you a cent!" exclaimed the voice of Mr. Enderbury. "I've
paid you for every bit of tattoo I have on me."
"Seven hunderdt dollars vos der contract," cried the voice of Herr
Schreckenheim. "Und ten dollars is due me yet. I vant it."
"Well, you'll keep on wanting it," said Mr. Enderbury's voice. "Look
here! Look at my chest. There's the eagle you did on me--do you see
any claws on it? No, you don't! Well, I'm not going to pay for claws
that are not on me. No, sir!"
"Claws? I do some claws on you, don't I, ven I do dot eagle?" asked
the German-American.
"Yes, but they're not on me now, are they?" asked Mr. Enderbury, "You
can go and collect from the person that has them. What do I care for
her now? She's going to quit the circus business. I've paid for all
the tattoo that's on me; you go and collect ten dollars for those
claws from Syrilla."
"Und how does she get those claws on her?" asked Herr Schreckenheim
shrewdly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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