"I was referring to the ring," said I.

They both burst out laughing, to my discomfiture.

"What do you take me for? A circus rider? Performing in a tent and
living in a caravan? You think I jump through a hoop in tights?"

"All I can say," I murmured, by way of apology, "is that it's a
mendacious world. I'm deeply sorry."

Why had I been misled in this shameful manner?

Madame Brandt with lazy good nature accepted my excuses.

"I'm what is professionally known as a _dompteuse_," she explained. "Of
course, when I was a kid I was trained as an acrobat, for my father was
poor; but when he grew rich and the owner of animals, which he did when
I was fourteen, I joined him and worked with him all over the world
until I went on my own. Do you mean to say you never heard of me?"

"Madame Brandt," said I, "the last thing to be astonished at is human
ignorance. Do you know that 30 per cent of the French army at the
present day have never heard of the Franco-Prussian War?"

"My dear Simon," cried Dale, "the two things don't hang together. The
Franco-Prussian War is not advertised all over France like Beecham's
Pills, whereas six years ago you couldn't move two steps in London
without seeing posters of Lola Brandt and her horse Sultan."

"Ah, the horse!" said I. "That's how the wicked circus story got about."