The Circus of Dr. Lao Read Online Free

wagon?"
     "Why, it's a bear, I believe," Mrs. Cassan called back obligingly. "Though I don't know what kind of a bear."
     "The lady on the corner says it's a bear, Joe," said the voice.
     "Bear, hell," said Joe's voice. "Don't you think I know a Russian when I see one?"
     "Well, dear me!" said Mrs. Cassan.
         The lawyer who prided himself on his extra-legal knowledge watched the parade tolerantly from his kitchen door with his wife.
     "It's sort of pitiful, isn't it?" he said. "A goofy little road show like that hanging silly disguises on animals to make them look like things out of mythology. It isn't even well done. That horse rigged up like a sphinx, for instance. Look at the fool woman's face on the thing. You can tell from here it's paper mâché or something. And those absurd breasts hanging down in front of it."
     "Now, Frank," said his wife, "don't be vulgar, please. What's that man doing in that cage, do you suppose? Is he some sort of a freak?"
     "Why, that's not a man, honey; that's a bear. Looks like a big grizzly from here."
     His wife pretended to smell his breath. "What have you been drinking, Frank, dear? Don't you credit me with enough intelligence to distinguish a man from a bear?"
     Frank looked at her in mock alarm. "I told you last week you ought to get fitted for glasses, honey. I'm going to take you down myself right after lunch and have the doctor fix you up with a triple-strong pair of lenses. A man; haw, haw, haw!"
     His wife got sore. "You make me so damn mad when you sneer that way. I mean when you laugh that sneering way. You do it on purpose. You know good and well that's a man; you're just trying to be funny."
     The lawyer looked at his wife strangely. "All right, honey," he said quietly; "it's a man. Come on; let's go in and eat."
     The telephone rang as they were sitting down. Frank answered it:
     "Hello."
     "'Lo, Frank?"
     "Yeah."
     "This is Harvey. Did you folks see the parade go by just now?"
     "Yeah."
     "Well, so did Helen and I. We couldn't decide what that was in the middle cage. Did you notice? We been having quite an argument, and I thought I'd call you up to settle it. Helen claimed it was a bear in there, but I thought it was a Russian. What did you folks make it out to be?"
     "We're undecided, too," said Frank and hung up.
         Quarantine Inspector Number Two saw the parade as he leaned out of his coupé window to yell at Inspector Number One, who was ambling toward him down Main Street. Inspector Number One got in the coupé and watched with him.
     "Man, that sure is a big snake," he said. "Reminds me of that big sidewinder I killed down on the Beeswax road last spring. Thing had sixteen rattles."
     "Must've been sixteen years old then," said Inspector Number Two.
     "Oh, that's the way you tell, is it? I always figured it was something like that. What do you make of that bear there? Is he a Sonoran grizzly?"
     "I don't see no bear."
     "Well, it's right there in that second wagon, bigger'n hell."
     "You're still asleep, fellah; that's a man. Looks like a Russian."
     "Yeah? Who is it, Trotsky?"
     "I dunno who it is, but it ain't no bear. Say, look at that dog, will you! Ever see a green dog before?"
     "There's lots of things in that parade I ain't never seen before. Just how in hell do you figure that ain't a bear in the middle wagon?"
     "'Cause I seen bears and I seen men; and I can tell a man from a bear as far as I can see either of 'em; and that thing is a man and not a bear; and I'm tired of arguing about anything so damn foolish."
     "All right," said Inspector Number One. "Don't go getting hard about it. I ain't going to argue with you. What do you make of the dog?"
     "Well, it's jest about the biggest dog I ever seen,