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By Root 1169 0

he had. They had the normal use of their limbs and could defend themselves against anyone who tried to take advantage of them. Even George and Bert, physically handicapped as they were by possessing only half a body each, were in possession of two shrewd brains that had largely protected them from exploitation except on their own terms. Many of the freaks were their own managers. They paid the circus a percentage of their earnings, but otherwise they were free. Those who were managed by others had struck bargains out of which they did very well. There was not one who, like Merrick, was treated as a possession. Even Marcus could give as good as he got.

Marcus was a dwarf who continually went about in a plumed hat, trailing a little wooden ark on wheels, drawn by a string. Merrick often wondered about that ark, as it seemed to add nothing to Marcus’s grotesqueness, which consisted only in being small and very ugly. Marcus never spoke of his ark, but he would not be without it.

He spoke, in fact, very little to anybody. To Merrick he had never addressed so much as a word. But he was constantly looking at him, frowning. Sometimes he came over to watch Bytes put the Elephant Man on exhibition. Merrick first noticed him one day when the show was drenched in a thunderstorm. It seemed to make no difference to the crowd’s appetite for horrors, for they huddled round the freak wagons almost as much as ever.

Bytes would deliver his patter just as he had always done, regardless of the fact that most of his audience probably could not understand a word. The back of the wagon was covered in the painted canvas poster, and before this Bytes would stand, gabbling through his words, and waving Merrick’s silver-topped walking cane. He had had time, while hiding in Merrick’s room, to look round him and pocket most of the expensive gifts, including the gold cigarette case and the ring. They had all been sold by now, but Bytes kept the cane, both for its usefulness and because he liked its elegance. He felt it gave him an “air.”

At the appropriate moment Tony would haul up the painted canvas and reveal Merrick standing in the back of the van, his head larger now, his few hairs turning gray. The crowd would gasp and shriek as crowds had always gasped and shrieked, and Bytes would swing into the full performance.

“Turn round—hurry up—”

Merrick turned slowly; he found movement more difficult now. Pain seemed to cover his body like an extra skin, and the increased weight of his head was hard to manage.

“Dance,” Bytes commanded.

Merrick began a series of awkward lifting movements, the closest he could get to a dance. Without his walking stick he could hardly manage to keep his balance, but he obeyed blindly, blanking out his mind from all consciousness save the oft-repeated prayer that death might come soon. Somewhere on the fringe of the crowd he was aware of Marcus, frowning, with a savage look in his eyes.

Merrick faltered suddenly and came to a stop, wheezing. But Bytes was not satisfied. This shortened performance would bring meager takings. So he hopped nimbly into the wagon and managed to jab Merrick with the stick, catching him in the back out of sight of the audience.

“Dance!” he rapped.

Merrick could not contain his groan of pain. As he began again making the awkward movements the audience began to throw coins. Some of them hit him, but most of them landed on the floor, where Tony busily scooped them up into a hat. Marcus had vanished.

After the afternoon performance came the meal, potatoes and slops, doubly revolting after the better food he had become used to. Bytes stood over him in the back of the wagon, to make sure he left none of the muck. The sharp deterioration in Merrick’s condition worried and angered him. It would be just like the spiteful so-and-so to starve himself to death just when he was paying dividends.

“Eat, my treasure,” he enjoined. “You always liked it before.”

Merrick looked wearily at the bowl but made no move to touch it.

“Eat,” said Bytes angrily. “I said eat.”

Merrick closed his eyes. The quiet