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in a propelling lipstick-like tube; its smell was not quite peppermint, and I’ve never come across that smell again. But the moment I think of that little girl, everything comes back to me as clear as yesterday—especially that smell.
    That was a nice thing; other things aren’t. For example:
    I remember another time from my childhood, and in fact from another fairground, but this one in the spring when I was maybe as young as the girl with the dog. It was the year of the cockchafer, the May bug. At least I think that’s what they were. Me and my lot, the kids I knocked about with, had our own name for them: we called them shit-beetles, because of the stench if you crushed one. And they were big, nasty, flying shit-beetles.
    I had this friend, Stanley. Even as a child and long before pubescence he was plagued with acne, pimples, boils, whelkiness in general. And Stanley had some money! We penniless kids could only look on in envy while Stanley whirled on high, flung round and round in his Flying Chair. But as the ride began to slow he was crying; and as the centrifugal force lessened and his chair fell from the near-horizontal to the vertical, where Stanley’s feet touched down on the ride’s boards, he was disgusting!
    He must have flown through a cloud of the things—because he had shit-beetles splattered all over him. And Stanley stank! I remember someone remarking, “Hey, don’t worry about it, Stan. Let’s face it, you don’t look any worse than before!” You know, kids can be cruel like that.
    But there you go: I only have to recall that fairground, on that day, and poor Stanley, and I remember the smell, the shit-beetle smell. In fact this smell, or one very much like it. Too much like it.
    I looked around. Close by, the pink face of a child-in-arms was half lost in a huge ball of sticky candy floss. And another was licking a toffee-apple that was about to fall off its stick. So was that it? A combination of stinks? And the kid in diapers—the one with the toffee-apple—had he or she just shat? God, I felt ill!
    The smell went away, drifted in another direction, and once again I focused on the clown on stilts. The Tattooed Man, still on his box, was looking up at him, talking to him. “What’s your outfit, my friend? I mean, I hate to poach, but we could definitely do with someone like you!” But then he frowned and curled his lip. “Or maybe you’re here for another reason—not to lend a hand but to lure the crowd away! Well, what do you say?”
    The clown looked down, shrugged, and shook his head. He was either dumb—or playing dumb, like other clowns I’ve seen—or he simply didn’t understand. What, a foreign clown?
    And waddling closer, the Fat Lady piped up, “Hey, give the man a break! Maybe he’s in that Russian circus. They’re playing in Sunderland. It’s odds-on he’s come to catch our act, see how we perform.” She held up a pudgy hand. “How’re you doing, pal?”
    The clown on stilts cocked his head on one side, gazed down at her upturned face, bent over and sniffed at her. It was part of his act, obviously. First he played dumb, and then he played daft. The Fat Lady laughed and said, “I smell good, right?” And she held up her hand higher yet. He took it, she shook it, they slowly let go; and looking oddly puzzled—jerking his head in an almost robotic fashion—the clown straightened up again.
    But that amazing bending action! How in hell had he managed that? His stilts must be the most marvelous contraptions, that he could bend as low as that without toppling over. And if this fellow was typical of his comrades, well that Russian circus in Sunderland must be one very class act!
    Meanwhile, Woofy was having the time of his doggy life. In and out like a mad thing; up on his hind legs one minute, down on all fours the next; his front legs stiff and jerking in time with his barking, and his hind-quarters stuck up in the air. It was all in fun, though, for his tail was