Of course, as soon as he said that, they all wanted to go, but Harry said he guessed two were enough. So Dorry and I went in and made a call. The freaks were getting ready to go to bed, but anyway, they were glad to see us. I guess Madame Whopper slept in another tent; anyway, we didn’t see her. Maybe she had a whole tent to herself.
Mr. Lemuel Long said he was hungry and he wished he could eat a lot like scouts do. Gee, I have to admit that scouts eat a lot—especially dessert. You can bet I wouldn’t want to be a human skeleton. Judge Dot said he should worry, because he couldn’t grow any taller no matter what happened. He said he was fifty-two years old and after you get to be fifty-five you begin to shrink. He said everybody does, mostly. He said if he shrunk, he was going to make Mr. Costello give him more money. Gee whiz, I couldn’t blame him, especially on account of the high cost of living. He said Madame Whopper had gained fifty pounds and she made Mr. Costello give her a raise.
While we were talking with Judge Dot, Jib Jab came in and said, “Hello, Scouty, how did you like the show?”
I said, “You looked good and wild, that’s one thing, especially with that chain on.” He said that chain was his own idea.
I guess he had just been washing his face, anyway, there wasn’t any hair on it and the brown was all cleaned off. I could see now that he was a mighty nice looking fellow. His hair was kind of curly and his eyes were awful bright. He took off his fur covering and put on a kind of a bath robe and then sat down on a chair and stuck his feet up on Madame Whopper’s platform. Oh boy, you should have seen Dorry stare. First he looked at the fur covering. It had paws and claws on it just like an animal. Then he looked at Jib Jab. I guess he didn’t know what to make of him.
Jib Jab said, “Now for a smoke,” and he lighted a cigarette; “nothing like a quiet smoke after the day’s work is over. Back in the jungle I never had all this bother of dressing and undressing. Civilization is just killing me. Fact is I can’t be tamed. Anybody got a newspaper? I suppose I ought to be thankful I haven’t got my face all plastered up with fly paper. Where’s old Sky Scraper?” That’s what he called the giant.