Читать книгу Walker of the Secret Service онлайн

10 страница из 66

I thought I should have to give it up.

Finally in a blacksmith shop I found a rusted rod that had been part of a wagon brake. I asked the blacksmith to give it to me. Naturally, he wished to know what I was going to do with it, and for a moment I was in difficulty for an answer. Then I told him that they wanted such a piece of iron out at the circus, and had promised to give me a ticket in if I could find it. He laughed.

“I’m glad,” he said, “that there’s something else they want, if the elephant ain’t thirsty.”

He flung me the rod and wished that I might enjoy the circus.

I had it in my sleeve when White appeared in the grass alley before the circus entrance.

I got out of the crowd and followed him. It was now dark. We went around the big tent, through the stables for the horses, then struck out across the meadow in a direction opposite from the town.

I walked beside him with my piece of rod in my sleeve, very much as a child, it now seems to me, might set out on a fairy expedition with an all-abiding confidence in the resources of those conducting him, and with no clear idea of what he might come to, unconcerned and careless of events.