I clambered in.  Jim followed, remarking amiably to the woman as he passed her on his way to the bow of the boat, “I thought you couldn’t have meant that!”

And Defeat rowed Jim and me; rowed us past the feathered marge of green islands quite as if nothing had happened.  But I knew it had happened, for Miss Lansdale was so nearly human that I presently found myself thinking “Miss Kate” of her.  She not only answered questions, but, what amazed me far more, she condescended to ask them now and then.  To an observer we might have seemed to be holding speech of an actual friendliness—­speech of the water and the day; of herself and the dog and a little of me.

At length, as I caught an overhanging willow to rest her arms a moment, I felt bold enough to venture words about this assumption of amity which was so becoming in her.  I even confessed that she was reminding me of certain distinguished but truly amiable personages who are commonly to be found in the side-show adjacent to the main tent.  “Particularly of the wild man,” I said, to be more specific, for my listener seemed at once to crave details.

“There is a powerfully painted banner swelling in the breeze outside, you know.  It shows the wild man in all his untamed ferocity, in his native jungle, armed with a simple but rather promising club.  A dozen intrepid tars from a British man-of-war—­to be seen in the offing—­are in the act of casting a net over him.  It’s an exciting picture, I assure you, Miss Lansdale.  The net looks flimsy, and the wild person is not only enraged but very muscular—­”

“I fail to see,” she interrupted, with a slight lapse into what I may call her first, or Lansdale, manner.

“Of course you fail!  You have to go inside to see,” I explained kindly.  “But it only costs a dime, which is little enough—­the hired enthusiast, indeed, stationed just outside the entrance, reminds us over and over again that it is only ‘the tenth part of a dollar,’ and he sometimes adds that ‘it will neither make nor break nor set a man up in business.’  He is a flagrant optimist in small money matters, ever looking on the bright side.”

“Inside?” suggested my listener, with some impatience.  I had regretted my beginning and had meant to shirk a finish if she would let me; but it seemed I must go on.

“Well, inside there’s a hand-organ going all the time, you know—­”

“The wild man?” she insisted, like a child looking ahead for the real meat of the story one is telling it.

“I’m getting to him as fast as I consistently can.  The wild man sits tamely in a cheap chair on a platform, with a row of his photographs spread charmingly at his feet.  Of course you are certain at once that he is no longer wild.  You know that a wild man whose spirit had not been utterly broken would never sit there and listen to that hand-organ eight hours every day except Sunday.  The fluent and polished gentleman in charge—­who has a dyed mustache—­assures us that we have nothing to fear from this ’once ferocious monster of the tropic jungle, with his bestial craving for human flesh,’ but that seems a mere matter of form, with the hand-organ going in our ears—­”