‘Yes,’ the man said.

‘And would you do it with petrol burning on the water?’

‘Yes.’

‘But have we got a tank?’ the manager’s wife asked.

‘There’s the old Mermaid’s tank. It’s just the thing. Get somebody to fetch it.’

While the tank was being brought the stranger looked about him.

‘Thinking better of it?’ said the manager.

‘No, sir,’ the man replied. ‘I was thinking I should want some bathing-trunks.’

‘We can soon fix you up with those,’ the manager said. ‘I’ll show you where to change.’

Leaving the stranger somewhere out of sight, he came back to his wife.

‘Do you think we ought to let him do it?’ she asked.

‘Well, it’s his funeral. You wanted us to have a dangerous act, and now we’ve got it.

‘Yes, I know, but——’ The rest was drowned by the rattle of the trolley bringing in the tank—a hollow, double cube like a sarcophagus. Mermaids in low relief sported on its leaden flanks. Grunting and muttering to each other the men slid it into position, a few feet from the pole. Then a length of hosepipe was fastened to a faucet, and soon they heard the sound of water swishing and gurgling in the tank.

‘He’s a long time changing,’ said the manager’s wife.

‘Perhaps he’s looking for a place to hide his money,’ laughed her husband, and added, ‘I think we’ll give the petrol a miss.’

At length the man emerged from behind a screen, and slowly walked towards them. How tall he was, lanky and muscular. The hair on his body stuck out as if it had been combed. Hands on hips he stood beside them, his skin pimpled by goose-flesh. A fit of yawning overtook him.

‘How do I get up?’ he asked.

The manager was surprised, and pointed to the ladder. ‘Unless you’d rather climb up, or be hauled up! You’ll find a platform just below the top, to give you a foot-hold.’

He had started to go up the chromium-plated ladder when the manager’s wife called after him: ‘Are you still sure you want to do it?’

‘Quite sure, madam.’

He was too tall to stand upright on the platform, the awning brushed his head. Crouching and swaying forty feet above them he swung his arms as though to test the air’s resistance. Then he pitched forward into space, unseen by the manager’s wife who looked the other way until she heard a splash and saw a thin sheet of bright water shooting up.

The man was standing breast-high in the tank. He swung himself over the edge and crossed the ring towards them, his body dripping, his wet feet caked with sawdust, his tawny eyes a little bloodshot.

‘Bravo!’ said the manager, taking his shiny hand. ‘It’s a first-rate act, that, and will put money in our pockets. What do you want for it, fifteen quid a week?’

The man shook his head. The water trickled from his matted hair on to his shoulders, oozed from his borrowed bathing-suit and made runnels down his sinewy thighs. A fine figure of a man: the women would like him.

‘Well, twenty then.’

Still the man shook his head.

‘Let’s make it twenty-five. That’s the most we give anyone.’

Except for the slow shaking of his head the man might not have heard. The circus-manager and his wife exchanged a rapid glance.

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘Taking into account the draw your act is likely to be, we’re going to make you a special offer—thirty pounds a week. All right?’

Had the man understood? He put his finger in his mouth and went on shaking his head slowly, more to himself than at them, and seemingly unconscious of the bargain that was being held out to him. When he still didn’t answer, the knot of tension broke, and the manager said, in his ordinary, brisk voice,

‘Then I’m afraid we can’t do business. But just as a matter of interest, tell us why you turned down our excellent offer.’

The man drew a long breath and breaking his long silence said, ‘It’s the first time I done it and I didn’t like it.’

With that he turned on his heel and straddling his long legs walked off unsteadily in the direction of the dressing-room.

The circus-manager and his wife stared at each other.

‘It was the first time he’d done it,’ she muttered. ‘The first time.’ Not knowing what to say to him, whether to praise, blame, scold or sympathize, they waited for him to come back, but he didn’t come.

‘I’ll go and see if he’s all right,’ the circus-manager said. But in two minutes he was back again. ‘He’s not there,’ he said. ‘He must have slipped out the other way, the crack-brained fellow!’

THE CROSSWAYS

Once upon a time there were two children, called Olga and Peter, and they lived on the edge of a huge forest. Olga was nine and Peter was seven. Their father was a woodman and very poor. Their mother’s name was Lucindra. She came from another country; their father had met her in the wars. She was beautiful and had fine golden hair. Though she was sometimes dreamy and absent-minded and would suddenly speak to them in her own language, which they didn’t understand, she was very fond of them and they loved her.

But Michael their father was a stern man and they were both a little afraid of him. Even Lucindra was afraid of him, for when he was angry he would scold her and sometimes tell her he wished he had never married her. And when this happened she wished she had never married him, but she did not dare to say so; besides he was strong and handsome and could be kind and loving when his fits of bad temper were over.

One thing he had always told his children, they must never on any account go farther into the forest than where they could still see the sunlight shining through the edges. The trees were so thick and the paths so few and hard to follow that even the foresters themselves sometimes lost their way. And there were dangerous animals as well, wolves and bears and wild boars. Michael still carried a scar from a gash that a bear had given him; it ran all the way from his elbow to his shoulder, making a bluish groove in his skin which you could feel with your finger. When he wanted to impress on them the danger of going too far into the forest he would show them the scar. Olga used to try not to look at it but Peter said he would like to have one like it.

Michael would not let even Lucindra wander about in the forest alone though sometimes he took her with him when he went out with his horse and cart. Then they would eat their dinner together under the trees, and she looked forward to that. But he usually went on foot, for the road soon came to an end and branched off into footpaths which lost themselves among the trees. So she did not know much more about the forest than the children did. But like them she wanted to know more, for their cottage was miles away from any town, and sometimes weeks passed without her seeing anyone.

One afternoon, however, when Michael was away at work, a stranger called. He was a young man, slight and slim, with hair as fair and eyes as blue as hers, which was not surprising for he came from her own country and had heard of people whom she knew. He was a pedlar who sold bead necklaces and brooches and bracelets and ribbons. These did not interest Peter very much but he also had pocket-knives and scissors and many other things. He brought them all out of his bag and laid them on the table in the kitchen which was their living-room; they shone and glittered and suddenly the whole place seemed much more cheerful, though Lucindra kept shaking her head and saying she was much too poor to buy anything. The young man said he didn’t expect her to, but he went on bringing more and more things out of his bag, even after it looked to be empty, and he was so gay that soon they were all laughing, Lucindra most of all; the children had never seen her laugh like that. And finally she went out of the room and came back with some money, and bought a bracelet for Olga and a pocket-knife for Peter and a necklace for herself. Then she told the young man he must be getting on his way, otherwise it would be dark; and he laughed and said he was in no hurry, because he knew the forest quite well. But greatly to the children’s disappointment she would not let him stay. So, telling her how unkind she was, he began to gather together his bits and pieces and put them back into the bag. The children could not take their eyes off him as one by one he packed the treasures away; and every now and then, if something was specially pretty, he would raise his eyebrows as though inviting them to buy it; but each time Lucindra shook her head. ‘You must go, you must go,’ she kept saying. ‘All in good time,’ he answered and looked slyly at the children, who knew that he was delaying his departure on purpose. But at last he got up and swung his sack over his shoulder and they followed him to the door where his horse was nibbling the grass; and he fixed the sack on a sort of pannier on its back and jumped into the saddle and wished them good-bye.