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nearly suffocated before she noticed that anything unusual was the matter, but generally speaking she did her duty in a way that laid over any regular hospital nurse that I ever saw.

"When the Giant got well the Fat Woman, who considered herself engaged to him, though he swore that he had never said a word of the kind, expected him to marry her, and when she found out that he hadn't the least idea of any such foolishness she was destroyed, as you might say. For about a week she lost her appetite and didn't eat enough to keep her alive, not to speak of making progress in her profession, and I had to speak pretty sharply to her about the dishonesty of growing thin when she had a contract with me that obliged her to increase her weight by all legitimate means. However, at the end of the week she braced up again and soon got over her passion.

"That's the way with Fat Women. They get over their disappointments, and are looking out for fresh ones quicker than any other woman outside of a Dime Museum. I'd like to find some intelligent man, say a parson or a doctor, who could tell me the reason of this. I can't see myself why there should be any difference between a fat woman and a thin woman in the matter of their affections; but there is a big difference. If you want just to carry on with a girl, take a middling fat one, and she'll get over it without giving you any trouble. But if you mean business, and want to marry a girl who'll stick to you, don't you take any girl weighing more than a hundred and twenty pounds.

"The two were excellent friends.".

"In course of time the Fat Woman forgot all about her affair with the Giant, and the two were excellent friends, both being good-tempered and good-hearted in their way. But pretty soon the Fat Woman fell in love again, and this time it was with an outsider. He was a sort of ticket speculator, and about as worthless a fellow as there was in all Cincinnati, which was where my show was located at the time, and anybody except a Fat Woman would have known that if he made love to a woman, it was because he thought there was money in it. He supposed that the Fat Woman was well-to-do in the world, as most of them are, seeing as they draw good salaries and have no expenses to speak of. Besides, he was sharp enough to see that she was putting on flesh day by day, and would naturally command more and more salary according as her weight increased. He used to come in to my place pretty nearly every day and have a little talk with the Fat Woman, and say how-de-do to the other 'freaks,' and maybe try to borrow fifty cents of me, for I had known him a good many years—which naturally made him feel that he had a right to borrow money of me.

"One day I noticed that the Fat Woman looked a good deal smaller round the waist than usual, and I charged her with lacing. At first she denied it, but I told her it was no use, and that she couldn't deceive me, and then she admitted that she was wearing a corset. 'What's got into you?' I asked her. 'Haven't you no sense, and no pride in your profession? Here you are actually trying to make yourself look smaller than you are, when you know perfectly well that you ought to be trying to do just the opposite. I tell you what it is, Melinda, you're got your eye on some young man, and want to make yourself look pretty.'

"'And what if I do?' said she. 'Do