Free The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney

Do you suppose she will blow a little kiss to me? Oh, God, if I could only have seen her when I was a young man! The contemplation of her beauty might have changed my whole life. Beauty can do that, can't it?
     "Yes, I think I will take her down to the sea and free her. And I will stand there and watch her swim out into the tide. But I wonder if she will turn and wave at me. Do you think she will, sir?"
     "Uh, I couldn't say," said Quarantine Inspector Number Two.
     "What do you feed her, doc?" asked Inspector Number One.
     "Seafoods," said the doctor. "Let's go look at the sphinx."
     The blunt-nosed woman-face of the thing stared at the two inspectors as they followed the Chinaman into the tent. The leonine tail switched softly at flies. "You bring the queerest people in here, Doctor Lao," said the sphinx reproachfully.
     "It's all in the interest of the trade," said the doctor.
     "Good Lord! Can it talk?" asked an inspector.
     "Of course," said the doctor, while the sphinx looked bored.
     "What is it, a he-sphinx or a she-sphinx?" asked the other inspector.
     Doctor Lao was embarrassed. "Come outside and I'll tell you," he muttered.
     Out of the tent he said to them secretively: "I wish you hadn't asked that in front of the sphinx. You see, it's neither man nor woman; it's both."
     "Aw, how can it be?" asked the first inspector.
     "Haven't you gentlemen ever heard of such a thing? Really, I'm amazed. A long time ago a man named Winkelmann found it out by looking closely at little African sphinxes. They are actually both male and female at the same time. The state of being bisexual, it is called."
     "Well, I'll be durned," said Inspector Number Two. "Let's go back and look at that critter again, Al."
         Frank Tull, the lawyer, telephoned his wife a little after two from his office and asked her if she wanted to go to the circus.
     "No," she said, "but I advise you to go and take another good long look at that man you thought was a bear. Then maybe you'll realize how easy it is for people to see one thing and swear they saw something totally different when they get on the witness stand."
     "Aw, honey," said Frank, "what the hell do you want to be nasty for? I thought you had forgotten all about that by this time. I said it was a man, didn't I?"
     "Yes, but you said it just to humor me. And if there's anything I hate, it's being humored, especially when I know I'm right."
     "Well, I'll tell you what, dear: you come and go with me, and we'll both look at that thing again, and whichever of us was wrong will apologize to the other. How's that?"
     "My God, Frank, I know perfectly well it was a man! I see no necessity for going out to that hot circus just to convince myself all over again. But you go, and I will be very gracious about it when you come home and apologize to me for sneering at me the way you did this morning."
     "You are being very unreasonable, darling."
     "On the contrary, I conceive myself as being the acme of reasonableness, considering the way you cackled at me, and all those horrid things you said about my needing glasses. If I had acted according to the promptings of my indignation I would have caused a scene that might have ended only in the divorce courts."
     "Listen, honey, are you really still sore about that parade, or are you just kidding me?"
     "No, I'm not sore, Frank. But neither am I kidding."
     "Well, I wish you'd change your mind and go."
     "No, Frank, really I don't care about seeing it. You go on by yourself and have a good time, dear."
     "Well . . . good-by."
     "Good-by."
     So Frank told his stenographer to tell any of his clients who might call on him that he would be back in half an hour, and he went out and got in his sedan and drove down Main Street to the circus