Adventure, December 1914 — page 170: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

168 We made a couple of jumps after the two men had their run-in in the trapping-room, and nothing happened. Everything went smooth, and most of us had about let the matter slip out of our minds. And then the thing hit us like a shock of Pitkin’s own ‘“‘juice’’ and knocked us off our pins. ee stand and the business was tremen- dous. Every performance packed the big top to the canvas. The Butterfly was simply going Immense. It was the last night of the stand. Collins was dressing for his turn when Pitkin rushed into the trapping-room and began to rum- mage about in his own trunk like a dog claw- ing for a buried bone. All the time he was mumbling away and sort of chuckling to himself. At the time Tom didn’t give much atten- tion to him, but afterward he remembered and spoke of it to me. Tom finished dressing and went out to the fly of the big top to wait for his troupe’s signal. There he found Mitchi, wrapped in her cloak, waiting for the Russian to join her before they should get their call. Quite as a matter of course, Tom stopped and spoke to the girl. She seemed rather nervous and hardly herself. He asked her what was the mat- ter. “I’m afraid, Tom,” she told him without any feminine fencing. She’d come to trust Collins pretty fully. ‘‘Boris—” Pitkin’s name was Boris—‘‘has been awfully queer all day. He’s asked me to marry him twice since morning.’”’ She laughed in a forced fashion, and went on: ‘‘That’s a record. Once a day has been his limit. But ever since the last time, this afternoon, he’s gone around muttering to himself— and I don’t like his looks. Honest, Tom, I don’t believe he’s just right. I believe he’s crazy “ Collins grinned. ‘‘He’s crazy about you, all right,” he said. ‘“‘T meant crazy—about me,” said Mitchi. ‘“‘And he’s been threatening again, Tom. He says—he’ll kill you—unless I do what he wants.”’ ‘‘T ain’t nervous,” Tom assured her. ‘‘He talks too much. Your bad man talks after, not before. But if he don’t stop pesterin’ you, why—I’ll have to marry you myself.” Mitchi laughed in a nervous fashion. WE WERE playing a two-day Adventure “Then if he keeps it up I’ll have a right to break his neck,” Collins went on, rather carried away by his words and the girl’s de- meanor and nearness, and his own love for every atom of her. “I told him I would once.” Mitchi gave him a smile. “It’s all right to joke,” said she, ‘‘but I’m really nervous tonight, Tom. If you’d seen Boris’ eyes as Tom rather lost his head for a minute. “IT ain’t joking, Mitchi,’”’ he informed her in a way which brought her eyes up to his. ‘An’ I tell you what you do. After tonight go to the old man and put it to him straight. He’ll call this guy off or tie a can on him. Or—if you’d rather, marry me, Mitchi. As my wife, your bughouse Russky wouldn’t have a leg left to stand on. Can’t you think of worse things than bein’ Mrs. Collins?”’ I don’t know what Mitchi would have answered to that, because just then Tom’s act was called and he had to leave on the jump. Even love has to step down when your number is called in the circus. He joined his troupe, trotted in and was pulled up to his bar. Later he told me that it wasn’t till after that, when the act was really started, that he really began to feel worried. Then it came to him all at once that something was due to happen. Just why it should be that night he didn’t know. All along Pitkin’s threats had gone for nothing. In fact Tom rather felt that the man was afraid to start any trouble. But now it hit him all at once that trouble was due. He says he went through his own act by instinct pure and simple, and all the time something kept telling him to grab a rope and slide down and stop things before the Butterfly was called. But he didn’t. Circus people are pretty loyal to the show, as a class. They know the performance has to go on, no matter what happens; and most of them will suffer a lot of pain, or worry, or sickness, before they’ll drop out of their act or make a hol- ler of any sort. And the Butterfly is the big number, of course. Tom told himself he was foolish; that just because he loved the girl so much he was nervous about her; that Pitkin was merely trying to scare her into the mar- riage, and he felt better—or at least he MICLOOOK C@