The carnival headquarters was lodged in three brightly painted trailers - each white with a brilliant rainbow design sweeping across it.  They were arranged in an incomplete square, the front side missing.  A portable picket fence surrounded the enclosure.  Mr. Timothy "Jelly" Jordan had an office in the long trailer on the left, which also housed the accountant and the woman who dispensed rolls of tickets every morning.

I waited for half an hour in the plain, linoleum-floored room where the bald accountant, Mr. Dooley, was poring through piles of papers.  As he worked, he nibbled steadily from a dish of radishes and pepperoncinis and black olives, and his spicy breath permeated the room, though none of the people who came in seemed bothered by it - or even aware of it.

I half expected one of the visitors to rush in with word that a carny was missing or even that one had been found dead in the vicinity of the Dodgem Car pavilion, and then they would all look at me because I was an outsider, the newcomer, a likely suspect, and they would see guilt in my face, and...  But no alarm was raised.

At last I was told that Mr. Jordan was ready to see me, and when I entered his office at the back of the trailer, I saw at once why he had been given his nickname.  He was a good two or three inches shy of six feet, six or seven inches shorter than Joel Tuck, but he weighed about as much as Tuck, at least two hundred and seventy pounds.  He had a face like a pudding, a round nose that might have been a pale plum, and a chin as shapeless as a dumpling.

When I walked through his door, a toy car was running in circles on the top of his desk.  It was a little convertible with four tiny clowns sitting in it, and as it moved, the clowns took turns popping up and then sitting down again.

Winding up another toy, he said, "Look at this one.  Just got it yesterday.  It's absolutely great.  Absolutely."

He put it down, and I saw that it was a metal dog with jointed legs that propelled it across the desk in a series of slow somersaults.  He watched it, eyes shining with delight.

Glancing around the room, I saw toys everywhere.  One wall was fitted with bookshelves that held no books, just a colorful collection of miniature windup cars, trucks, figurines, and a tiny windmill that probably boasted moving blades.  In one corner two marionettes hung from a peg to prevent the control strings from tangling, and in another corner a ventriloquist's dummy was perched attentively on a stool.

I looked back at the desk in time to see the dog complete one last, even slower somersault.  Then, with the power provided by the final unwinding length of spring, it sat up on its haunches and raised its forepaws, as if begging for approval of its stunts.

Jelly Jordan looked at me, grinning broadly.  "Ain't that just absolutely the absolute?"

I liked him immediately.

"Terrific," I said.

"So you want to join up with Sombra Brothers, do you?" he asked, leaning back in his chair as soon as I had settled in another.

"Yes, sir."

"I don't suppose you're a concessionaire with your own shop, looking to pay a privilege for a spot on the midway."

"No, sir. I'm only seventeen."