The Gray Shadow

“Roll up! Tumble up! Anyway to get up! If you can’t get up, roll your money up. For we’re here to-day and away to-morrow!”

This curious bit of philosophy coming from the lips of Johnny Thompson, youthful world traveler and adventurer, even to himself seemed strange. Yet here he was barking his wares at the “Greatest of all Carnivals.”

He had learned those words at a county fair when a boy of seven. That they were as effective now as then was attested by the crowds of men and women that thronged about his booth. All were eager to place a dime on the square and win (if luck were with them) a basket of groceries at the turn of the wheel of fortune that spun so freely at Johnny’s touch.

“I don’t like this business,” Johnny had said to a friend only an hour before. “A few win. The rest go away empty handed.”

“I know,” his friend had agreed. “But then, after all, it’s only a dime for each one. And it’s part of the carnival. Look at those people. Do you ever think much about them? Look at their faces. Not much of a life they lead. The men work in factories putting bolts into places; same kind of bolt in the same kind of place all day long. Perhaps they lift a casting from one place and drop it down in another. The women stay at home and scrub and cook. Carnival comes but once a year. Let them have their fun.”

Johnny’s friend had cheered him up a bit so he went about his barking with a smile:

“We’re here to-day and away to-morrow.”

“For all that,” he assured himself, “I’ll flit as soon as some big thing breaks.”

Ah, yes, that was it, “some big thing.” Johnny was here for a purpose. The dimes that came, the baskets of groceries that passed over the counter, interested him very little. He was looking all the time for faces, certain faces, and thinking how he would mingle more and more with the men and women who were by profession followers of the Carnival. And all this for one high purpose.

So now with the bright lights dazzling his eyes and the incessant tumult of sounds, organs grinding, hawkers hawking, merry-makers screaming, he kept at his task of the moment, shouting:

“We’re here to-day and away to-morrow. Now! Round and round she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows!”

“Anyway,” he grumbled low to himself, “I give ’em something when they do win. No clock that won’t run, nor painted plaster-of-paris doll for me. Real basket of groceries: oatmeal, peas, canned fish and a picnic ham.

“There you are, lady!” he shouted as the wheel stopped on the lucky 15. “Take this home for your Sunday dinner.” The crowd laughed and applauded as a short, stout Italian woman stumped away with her prize.

At that moment, from opposite directions, two youths pressed into the throng, each to deposit a dime on a favorite square. One was rather tall and broad shouldered; the other thin and of medium height. The one of athletic build was dressed as a college youth, and looked the part; latest stiff hat, bright tie, natty brown suit and spats he wore. The other seemed a freckle-faced country youth. He wore a soft slouch hat. His clothes fitted him badly. He even walked with that curious stride that suggests the lifting of feet from soft earth.

Johnny moved each dime to the center of its square and twirled the wheel. As he did so the college youth winked, and the freckled one, talking from the side of his mouth, said distinctly:

“They’re all here. Greasy Thumb and his gang. Saw ’em just now. Greasy is running a wheel. Rest are cappers. Wonder why.”