As the last gay asterisk faded from before his blinking eyes Red Hoss found himself sitting down on a hard concrete sidewalk. Coincidentally other discoveries made themselves manifest to his understanding. One was that the truth which often is stranger than fiction may also on occasion be a more dangerous commodity to handle. Another was that abruptly he had severed all business connections with Mr. Lee Farrell's industry. His resignation had been accepted on the spot, and the spot was the bulge of his left jaw. Somewhat dazed, filled with an inarticulate but none the less sincere conviction that there was neither right nor justice left in a misshapen world, Red Hoss got up and went away from there. He deemed it the part of prudence to go utterly and swiftly away from there. It seemed probable that at any moment Mr. Farrell might emerge from his inner office, whither, as might be noted through an open window, he had retired to pour cold water on his bruised knuckles, and get violent again. The language he was using so indicated. Presently Red Hoss, with one side of his face slightly swollen and a curious taste in his mouth, might have been seen boarding a Locust Street car southbound. He was on his way to Mechanicsville. In the back part of his brain lurked vaguely a project to seek out the man who owned those elephants and plead for some fashion of redress for painful injuries innocently sustained. Perhaps the show gentleman might incline a charitable ear upon hearing Red Hoss' story. Just how the sufferer would go about the formality of presenting himself to the consideration of the visiting dignitary he did not yet know. It was all nebulous and cloudy; a contingency to be shaped by circumstances as they might develop. Really sympathy was the balm Red Hoss craved most. He quit the car when the car quit him--at the end of the line where the iron bridge across Island Creek marked the boundary between the municipality and its principal suburb. Even at this hour Mechanicsville's broadest highway abounded in fascinating sights and alluring zoological aromas. The carnival formally would not open till the afternoon, but by Powers Brothers' crews things already had been prepared against the coming of that time. In all available open spaces, such as vacant lots abutting upon the sidewalks and the junctions of cross streets, booths and tents and canvas-walled arenas had been set up. Boys of assorted sizes and colors hung in expectant clumps about marquees and show fronts. Also a numerous assemblage of adults of the resident leisure class, a majority of these being members of Red Hoss' own race, moved back and forth through the line of fairings, inspired by the prospect of seeing something interesting without having to pay for it.