“Gee!  Well, you were some.  Shake.”  Hanson extended his hand, which Mrs. Gallito shook warmly.  “And I do remember your mother.  I should say so.  First time I went to the circus, I was about ten years old—­ran off you know.  Knew well enough what I’d get when I turned up at home.  Pop laying for me with a strap.  Goodness!  It takes me right back.  It’s all a kind of jumble, sawdust ring and animals and clowns and all; but what I do remember plain is Isobel Montmorenci, her and a big black horse she was riding.”

“Caesar!” cried Mrs. Gallito excitedly.  “Lord! don’t I remember!  I learned to ride on him.”

“Yes,” mused the manager, “all I recall of that circus is her and my two nickels.  I broke my bank to get ’em.  They seemed a fortune to me; but even then I was a shrewd kid and meant to get my money’s worth.  Well—­the first one I laid out in a great tall glass of lemonade.  Say, that was the first time I came up against the disillusions of life.  Nothing but a little sweetened water.  The next nickel went for peanuts, and they were too stale for even a kid to chew.”

“Ain’t that just like a young one at the circus!” Mrs. Gallito laughed loudly.

“What’s the joke, mom?” drawled a lazy, sliding, soft voice on the other side of her.

“A circus story, honey.  Oh!” as the sudden formal silence recalled her to her duty.  “I forget.  You two ain’t been introduced, have you?  Pearl, make you acquainted with Mr. Hanson.  He’s in the show business.”

Pearl bowed without lifting her eyes, giving Hanson ample opportunity to note the incredible length, as it seemed to him, of the upcurling lashes upon her smooth cheeks.  But just as he bent forward to speak to her, she half-turned from him and said something to one of the men beside her.

The manager’s quickness saved him.  He was perfectly aware of all those jealous masculine eyes, flickering now with repressed and delighted laughter over his discomfiture.  He recovered himself in a moment and slipped easily and with unabated geniality into a conversation with Mrs. Gallito.

“Funny you should marry out of the profession,” deftly catching up his threads.

“She didn’t,” again that soft, sliding voice.  “Pop was born in the sawdust, too.”

Without a change of expression in his face, Hanson waited imperturbably for Mrs. Gallito’s answer.  Since his eyes were fixed on the red spark at the end of his cigarette, who could see the quick flash in them?

Mrs. Gallito took a hasty gulp of beer.  “It’s just like Pearl says,” she murmured.  “Her pop came of a long line of circus people, same as me, but he broke clean away from it, couldn’t bear the life.”  There was unabated wonder in her tones.  “I guess,” resignedly, “it’s the Spanish of him.”

“Say,” cried Hanson, and now his voice rang with a new note in it, something of gay, masterful, masculine dominance, “say, what you ladies drinking beer and lemonade for?  It’s got to be wine to-night.  Hey, Jimmy.  Wine for this table, and treat the house.  Wine, understand?  Got enough to float ’em?”