“On the bally, Charlie allowed his wit a freer play. As Zovene juggled with his spangled Indian clubs, Charlie would say, in a pretended undertone which carried well beyond his audience: ‘Pretty good, eh? He isn’t big, but he’s good. Anyways, how big would you be if you’d been strained through a silk handkerchief?’ The young bloods would guffaw at this, and their girls would clamour to have it explained to them. And when Zitta showed her snakes, she would drag the old cobra suggestively between her legs and up her front, while Charlie whispered, ‘Boys-oh-boys, who wouldn’t be a snake?’

“Inside the tent Charlie urged the young men to model themselves on Sonnenfels, so that all the girls would be after them, and they’d be up to the job. And when he came to Andro he would ogle his hearers and say, ‘He’s the only guy in the world who’s glad to wake up in the morning and find he’s beside himself.’ He particularly delighted in tormenting Hannah. She did her own talking, but as she shrieked her devotion to the Lord Jesus, Charlie would lean down low, and say, in a carrying whisper, ‘She hasn’t seen her ace o’ spades in twenty years.’ The burst of laughter made Hannah furious, though she never caught what was said. She knew, however, that it was something dirty. However often she complained to Gus, and however often Gus harangued Charlie, the Spirit of Carnival was always too much for him. Nor was Gus whole-hearted in her complaints; what pleased the crowd was what Gus liked.

“Hannah attempted to fight fire with fire. She often made it known, in the Pullman, that in her opinion these modern kids weren’t bad kids, and if you gave them a chance they didn’t want this Sex and all like that. Sure, they wanted fun, and she knew how to give ’em fun. She was just as fond of fun as anybody, but she didn’t see the fun in all this Smut and Filth. So she gave ’em fun.

“ ‘Lots o’ fun in your Bible, boys and girls,’ she would shout. ‘Didn’t you know that? Didya think the Good Book was all serious? You just haven’t read it with the Liberal Heart, that’s all. Come on now! Come on now, all of you! Who can tell me why you wouldn’t dare to take a drink outa the first river in Eden? Come on, I bet ya know. Sure ya know. You’re just too shy to say. Why wouldn’t ya take a drink outa the first river in Eden?—Because it was Pison, that’s why! If you don’t believe me, look in Genesis two, eleven.’ Then she would go off into a burst of wheezing laughter.

“Or she would point—and with an arm like hers, pointing was no trifling effort—at Zovene, shouting: ‘You call him small? Say, he’s a regular Goliath compared with the shortest man in the Bible. Who was he? Come on, who was he?—He was Bildad the Shu-hite, Job two, eleven. See, the Liberal Heart can even get a laugh outa one of Job’s Comforters. I betcha never thought of that, eh?’ And again, one of her terrible bursts of laughter.