"I suppose I can sleep in the gutter," raved Braddock. "I don't give a 'ang where you sleep, Tom Braddock," shouted Joey, angry for the first time in years. "Where's that Snipe kid?" demanded the other. "He's to stay with me," announced Joey. "The damned little sneak, he could save us a lot of trouble if he'd thaw out and hand over some of the money he's hiding. I'm going to have it out with him. He can't stay on here and let--" "I wouldn't talk so much, Brad. Better keep a close tongue in that 'ead of yours," said the clown meaningly. Braddock looked at him in sudden apprehension. He began to wonder what the old clown suspected. He changed his tactics. "If Dick Cronk was only here, I could borrow enough from him to get a place to sleep," he growled petulantly. "But, curse him, he hasn't been near us since that job in Granville, ten days ago." When Joey left him he was cursing everything and everybody. On the way to the hotel Christine and David walked together. She clung very tightly to his arm. Leaving the grounds, she had whispered in his ear: "David, I adore you--I just adore you." "I'd die for you, Christine. That's how I feel toward you," he responded passionately. A sweet shyness fell upon her. The chrysalis of girlish ignorance was dropping away; she was being exposed to herself in a new and glowing form. Something sweet and strange and grateful flashed hot in her blood; the glow of it amazed and bewildered her. "Oh, David," she murmured timorously. "My little Christine," he breathed, laying his hand upon hers. She sighed; her red lips parted in the soft, luxurious ecstasy of discovery; she breathed of a curiously light and buoyant atmosphere; she was walking on air. Little bells tinkled softly, but she knew not whence came the mysterious sound. An amazing contentment came over them. They were very young, and the malady that had revealed itself so painlessly was an old one--as old as the world itself. Their hearts sang, but their lips were mute; they were drunk with wonder. They lagged behind. Far ahead hurried the others, driven to haste by low rumbles of thunder and the warning splashes of raindrops. The drizzle of the gray, lowering afternoon had ceased, but in its place came ominous skies and crooning winds. Back on the circus lot men were working frantically to complete the task of loading before the storm broke over them. Everywhere people were scurrying to shelter. David and Christine loitered on the way, with delicious disdain for all the things of earth or sky.