was to me only as a scene in a painting on which my[102] eye casually fell. The only living, breathing fact of which I was really conscious was that those blue eyes were shining like stars just over my head. [102] In the pauses of the drama, the lemonade man went by. What was he to me, or I to him? Noisy boys or verdant farming youths might patronize him at their will—I slaked my thirst with deep draughts of a nectar no lemonade-fellow could dispense at two cents a glass. While the cannon-ball man was catching a ten-pound ball between his teeth, and the boneless boy was tying himself in a double bow-knot, I was pleasing myself with images of the darling little Spitz I would seek, purchase, and present to Miss Flora in place of the one who had thoughtlessly swallowed my fish-hook. "Were you ever in love, young man?" suddenly asked the clown, after the india-rubber athlete had got tired of turning himself, like a dozen flap-jacks on a hot griddle. The question startled me. I looked up. It seemed to me, as he eyed me, that he had addressed it particularly to me. I blushed. Some strange country girls on either side of me began to titter. I blushed more decidedly. The motley chap in the ring must have seen it. He grinned from ear to ear, walked up to the very edge of the rope, and repeated: "Were you ever in love, young man?" There were young men all round me; he[103] might have looked at Knickerbocker, or any one of a dozen others; if I had not been supersensitive I never should have imagined that he meant to be personal. [103] If I had not retained the self-possession of an egotist, I should have reflected that it was not the thing to notice the vulgar wit of a circus-clown. Unfortunately self-possession is the last possession of a bashful man. I half rose from my seat, demanding fiercely: "Are you speaking to me, sir?" "If the shoe fits, you can wear it," was the grinning answer; and then there was a shout from the whole audience—hooting, laughter, clapping of hands—and I felt that I had made a Dundreary of myself. "We beg parding," went on the rascal, stepping back and bowing. "We had no intentions of being personal—meant no young gentleman in partikilar. We always make a point of asking a few questions in general. Here comes
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