The Circus of Dr. Lao Read Free

gained by the use of white space around the big black type, commending the restrained use of italics, admiring the thin Goudy caps and small caps. The sense of what he looked at piqued him. "Wonder what kind of show it is?" thought Mr. Etaoin. "Believe I'll go to the thing."
         Mr. Larry Kamper read the ad cursorily in a cast-aside Tribune as he lounged under the palm trees in the park by the railroad station waiting for a freight train to leave Abalone. Larry knew not what train he was waiting for, nor in which direction it might be going, nor where he would get off. But he didn't mind. He had recently been discharged from the army, still had a little money, was reasonably his own master and comparatively free from worry. His last permanent address had been Company E, 15th U.S. Infantry, American Compound, Tientsin, China. He had been discharged at Fort Mason after his return to America on an army transport, had been paid all that was due him, and now was touring the great Southwest, a land hitherto out of his ken, on sidedoor Pullmans. So he lounged under the palm trees in the park near the railroad station, waiting for a freight train to go in either one direction or another, and cursorily read the ad in the cast-aside Tribune . And, lo, upon the world-weary traveler there fell a pall of nostalgia, and waveringly a ghost cry from the bones of his dead youth smote his ears: he had not seen a circus for ten years; to be a little boy again; to tremble at the sight of strange animals; to recapture the simple thrill of wonderment: that would be pleasure; that would be good. Larry the infantryman, Larry the booze-fighter, Larry the whorechaser, Larry the loudmouthed, read the ad and longed for his boyhood. And presently he got to his feet and wondered what time it was and started for the circus grounds.
         Six blocks down Main Street Larry Kamper encountered the parade. Realizing he was too early for the show, he shouldered his way through the mass of Mexicans that cluttered the curb to get a look at the procession.
     He almost laughed when he saw it. Only three frowzy little beast-drawn wagons, the first driven by an old Chinaman, the second by a pale bearded man, the last by a Jewish-looking fellow with a cap of goat horns on his head. There was a big coiled grey snake in the Chinaman's wagon, a bear in the second wagon, a green dog in the last.
     "Hey," said a man standing beside Larry, "what sort of animal is that thing pulling the first cart there?"
     Larry looked and saw a horse bearing on its forehead a long thin white horn.
     "Just some fake," said Larry. "What d'you call them things? Singlehorns? That ain't it. Monohorns? Naw . . . uh . . . unicorns? That's it. Unicorn. Fellah took a horse and made a unicorn out of it by pasting a horn on its head, I guess."
     "Yeah, but that ain't no horse like any ever what I see," said the man. "Look at thet there tail. Ever see a horse with a tail like that critter's got?"
     "Well, I don't know a hell of a lot about horses," said Larry. "I been in the infantry six years. But it ain't no unicorn; I know that, 'cause there ain't no unicorns, nor ever was."
     "Well, sir, that thing ain't a horse either," said the man. "I been boy-raised with horses, and I can tell 'em when I see 'em; and that ain't no horse."
     "I guess it's a freak of some kind then," said Larry. And he also said: "Well, Jeesis, what's that thing driving the last wagon?"
     The man looked and said: "Why, it's just a feller with some goat horns on his head. Another fake, I reckon."
     "I never seen a man like that before," said Larry. "Look at his feet."
     "What's the matter with his feet?"
     "Aw, he pulled 'em down too quick. He had 'em up on the dashboard for just a second. Had awful funny-looking shoes on, if you could call 'em shoes. Look at his face; ever see a face like that before?"
     "Sure," said