A Fool and A Woman.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9124, 3 July 1891, Page 4

A Fool and A Woman.

Bayminster was in a flutter of excitement. Chimbang had come at last. Some ten days past the old city had been violently awakened from its normal slumbrous mood by beholding one morning its quiet streets mysteriously — almost magically—blazoned with gigantic posters, vivid a«d polychromatic as the aurora borealis, announcing the electrifying fact that Chimbang was coming. Later these were supplemented by others portrayiug the marvels— equestrian, pedestrian^ . dramatic, hippodraniatic, terrestrial, ' and celestial— combining £0 make up that wondrous whole, Chimbang's Wor^-Famed Circus. And later yet, evef^'dead wall in Bayminster was alh-e with! the counterfeit presentment, on- a scale of a yard to the inch, of the great Chimbang himself ; that identical Chimbang, who, firm in his resolve to bewilder Bayminster, had left the crowned heads of Europe to wear a golden sorrow.

And soon, on a piece of .waste ground in the outskirts of the city, unwonted signs of activity were manifest ; the sawing of planks, the piling of bales of tarpauling, aud coils of guy ropes, more digging than had been knowu ou the spot since a body of gentlemen from London, wearing spectacles of many colours, had declared it to be the site of a lioman barrow (though the oldest inhabitant of Baymiu'ster declared he had nevef caught .sight, qf 'a barrow there different from his own). A large canvas circular temple rose" like a mighty mushroom in^the night,' and what had been an abomination of desolation,' the repository of dead cats and discarded kettles, suddenly became the focus of public interest.

The climax came with Chimbang himself. One morning a seemingly endless cavalcade, headed by the brassiest of bands, liko a wounded and brilliant-hued snake, dragged its slow length along the cobbled streets, past the gabled fronts, whose latticed windows had surely never looked upon a braver show since, 1 longer than two centuries ago, King Charles had "eritere*d its walls at the head of his Tjelacedaud lovo-locked cavalier-s. Surely Chimbang might have exclaimed with Louis XV., " After me the deluge !" since he had almost the stock of another Ark. On the backs of huge elephants swayed gorgeous palanquins, wherein sat, in stately splendour, the ladies and gentlemen .011 whose portraits the gaping crowd had gazed,;aud the latter now confessed with satisfaction that the "originals were quite as wonderful and as highly coloured. . As these filed majestically by," the; small urchin, wearing the corduroy suit and topknot, and labelled with the pewter badge of Chivver's Charity, ! timidly inquired — 11 Who be they foiue ladies and gentlemen in di'monds and gold and red and yeller I" aud his companion ---replied, with the superiority ami complacency warranted by twelve months' seniority — "Whoy, lad ! they be the crowned yeads of Europe, as tho bills are all about, to be sure !"

By the same rule that, at a military ball, a black uniform is the most <?isiingne, the figure which attracted -most attention in this glittering and kaleidoscopic procession was that of afybdng lady, attired in a faultless riding habit, who managed with easy grace aud perfect skill a thoroughbred white Arab. Her complexion was of dazzling fairness ; her features delicately cut as those of a Greek statue ; her expression perfect in its repose ; though the firm chin, the firm lines about tho mouth, and the dusky flash of the grave grey eyes told of the will which had won for her the mastery "of the mettled horse she rode. As the Arab lifted its shapely fore-feet iv graceful paces, the supple form of its rider swayed with every motion, like the willow branch with the breeze ; and though tho Bayminster folk, as became dwellers in a hunting shire, could boast a goodly beVy of Dianas, a murmur of genuine aslmiration accompanied t lie. fair equestrienne as she passed along their hues. This young lady was announced Ijy Qhi in bang as Mdlle. Florine, the Q,ueen of the Kaute Ecole ; her professional name, however, was not precisely the one bestowed upon her by her sponsors, but she was a flower that would nave beeii sweat by any name. A prolonged and awe-in-spired "00-oh !" from the crowd heralded the approach of tho clu'ef attraction of Chimbang's 'exhibition. Drawn by aji powerful teamsters,, on" rumbled a , hugf caravan, consisting of an i'ron-barrecl' cage, within which ifour lioub blinked atid scowled, at the open-eyed and' mouthed spectators. A compartment partitioned iff by ; more iron bars contained another lion and— a 1 man .! „ , "What- a handsome pair! 1 ' reiparks Mary Chudbury,,; who" has reined 'in her horse t# let the 'procession pass, .tib^her devoted admirer, Captain .Drayieigii. " Yes, all lions are majestic, doutcherknowTtlje son of Mars replies,. fixing his eye-glass superciliously on the~lion-tamer ; and Mary remarks, senteutiously^- " B*ut not all men !" at which the captairt's face and glass fell simultanepnsly^ But Mary was right. The liou's eyes could awe men : man ' 9 large, flashing eyes could inspire respect ins men — and lions. This was* Sanor_ Michael Callano,'otherwise Callaghau ; aud thirty years before, his father had declared that' he would call him after nimself, " Micky, bedad !'.' ! NotT.unnqturally, the Remainder "of the proces^iorTwas in the nature of an anticlimax. v To the uninitiated there is a sameness^ in elephants' and camels, and Baymirjstissr had exhausted its vocabulary of interjections of admiration upon the lion-tamer that it fqund the rest of the processionists even tamer than the" lions. So there- was comparatively, little comment until the last of the riders appeared. ' " .., Straddling a donkey, with his face to the tail, came a clowfa, convulsing the bystander* by his antics. a 6he rode along ; now falling off his now clinging desperately to its haunches, as if to maintain his seat ; and generally indulging in capers, which, as is usual with real fooling, required an amount ;of cleverness. A roar of laughter ran, like tire along a furze bush, down the lines of the people as he passed between them, the general exclamation beings "Wbatafo.ol!", . } Chimbang's Circus was decidedly a success at Bayminster. For the next few days following his .arrival, the townsfolk talked of nothing but the graceful foats of Mdlle Florine, the reckless daring of Senor Michel Callano, and the drollery of Joey Mumble-jumble; the 'clown. The last of the trio was in great request among the jovial spirits of the town, until, it was discovered that he was so averse from ''shop " after shop hours that he who,/ inside the ring, was as blithe a«j Yoric at the table, in the social circle was almost as 1 glum as that celebrity when Hamlet introduced 1 him to Horatio. '

Feminine Bayminster began to tremble at the presence in their midst of Mdlle. Florine. The circus had been several times honoured by the patronage of the colonel commanding and the officers of the Spatterdashes, and each morning ifloral and other tributes to her. beauty and equestrian skill arrived from the barracks ; each evening she rcceiyed a shower of bouquets from the same quarter. Old Dr. Banks, the erstwhile woman-hater,

[To fa crmtinwd to-morrow]