“So’ve I,” said Hanson good humoredly, “but you’re wrong, son”—­there was a brief, triumphant flash of his light eyes—­“she’s looked at me twice, took me all in, too.  Numbered the hairs of my head and the size of my shoes.  Threw a search light on my heart and soul.  Gee!  It felt like the violet rays.  Now, look here, friend, I ain’t going to take chances on a turn-down, nor of your Mr. Bob Flick having fun all night shooting holes in the floor while this little Johnny Tenderfoot does his imitation Black Pearl dancing.  Listen,” he tapped the bar sharply, “when I meet the Black Pearl, it’s because she requested an introduction.  You take me up to that old lion tamer, her mother.”

Jimmy threw him a glance of ungrudging admiration.  “You ain’t so dumb,” he vouchsafed.  “Say, have one on me.”

“A little later,” replied the other.  “Never drink during business hours.”

A small table had been placed before Mrs. Gallito, upon which were two glasses, one of beer for herself, and one of lemonade for her daughter.

As Jimmy performed the introduction, she put down her beer from which she had been somewhat thirstily drinking and received Hanson with a perfunctory bow and a brief mechanical smile.  “Think of settling here?” she asked politely.

“No, I’m just down for a few days,” replied Hanson genially.  He had drawn a chair up and seated himself on the other side of the table, directly opposite Mrs. Gallito and her daughter.

The surprise of the glance she threw at him was heightened by a quick curiosity.  “Just prospecting?” she asked.  “I saw at once that you weren’t a ‘lunger.’  I didn’t think you were an engineer, so I made up my mind that you were looking for land.”

“None of them,” returned Hanson, smiling, and hastened to inform her of his real calling.  Immediately she relaxed, her smile became genuine, the bored and constrained politeness vanished from her manner.

“Well, that is certainly nice,” she exclaimed with real animation and cordiality.  “I’m always glad to meet any of the profession.  No folks like your own folks, you know.”  She bridled a little.

“That’s so,” agreed Hanson heartily.  “I knew the minute that I saw you that you belonged.”

She lifted her head with a gesture of pride, the glow and color came back into her face, giving it a transitory appearance of youth, and restoring, for a fugitive moment, something of its vanishing beauty.

“Born to it,” she said.  “My mother and her mother, and my father and his father, and, ’way back on both sides, was all circus people.  Yes, I was born in the sawdust—­rode—­drove—­tight-rope—­trapeze—­learned dancing on the side—­ambitious, you know.  Say, you must have heard of my mother—­greatest bare-back rider ever in the ring.  Isobel Montmorenci.  English, you know.  I wasn’t so shy myself, Queenie Madrew.”