Grace snarled over the cubs.
"You know how those things work;everybody puts up an argument and then it's up to the fellow who is making the bluff to back it up with an offer to donate a sum of money to some charitable institution if he can't deliver the goods. We were well ahead of the game as a result of the advertising and had about two thousand to the good and Merritt got awful chesty. He had lied about that snake so much that he believed in it himself and it made me a little nervous one night when he offered to donate two thousand dollars to the 'Home for Decrepit Side Show Fakirs' if any one could produce another specimen like this one, short of the head waters of the Amazon. I wasn't scared so much by that as by what I feared he might say, for I knew they couldn't get another if they raked the universe with a fine-tooth comb, and sure enough, he was carried away by his enthusiasm and offered to bet our entire bank roll that the snake was a genuine 'American flag', such as had never been exhibited in any country.
"It was just our luck that there was ahalf-loaded tin-horn gambler in the audience that night; one of the kind that wears a yellow diamond and a checked suit with a white stove-pipe hat; and the only part of the speech that he understood was that somebody wanted to make a bet. That raised his sporting blood, and he climbed up to the platform and pulled out a roll of yellow boys that would choke a dog and peeled off twenty centuries.
"'I don't know much about snakes which bromide won't make chase themselves back to the woods,' says he as he plunked 'em down on the table. 'I ain't got your gift of gab, but money talks and I've got this pile to say that you can't tell the truth to save your neck. Just stack up your pile alongside of that and then trot out your snakelet.' I was feeling pretty sore on Merritt for making such a bluff, but, of course, we had to make good and between us we covered the bet. We had glass cages full of snakes all around the platform, but 'Old Glory' was in a big chest covered with gilt figures and brass chains and fastened with a padlock.Merritt was mad clear through at having his veracity questioned, but he looked pretty confident as he stuck the key in the lock.
"'It's a shame to take the money,' says he, as he eyed the gambler, 'but there's an old saying about the mental capacity of a man that is speedily separated from his bank roll, and I reckon you were away from home the last time the fool killer called.' The gam just smiled and kept his eye on the stakes, and Merritt gives the chains a rattle to wake up 'Old Glory' and throws back the lid of the chest.
"'Now,' says he, turning to the audience, 'if you'll kindly give me your attention I'll show you one of the most marvelous mysteries of Nature. It was procured by one of our special agents at the head waters of the Amazon at tremendous expense. It is a unique representative of the reptilian family and the sight of it should arouse pride in the hearts of all patriotic Americans; for as he unwinds his sinuous coils you will observe that while his head and neckare blue, the body, down to the tip of the tail, is marked with thirteen alternate stripes of red and white, giving this marvelous creature the appearance of being wrapped in that glorious emblem of liberty which waves over the land of the brave and the home of the free.' Merritt stops then, throwing out his chest and sticking his hand into the bosom of his coat to wait for the customary applause from the gallery to subside; but instead of the usual glad hands he was greeted with a roar of laughter and cat-calls and when he turned to look at the snake box, there was 'Old Glory' crawling out, looking ashamed of himself, for he was as white as the day he was born."
"What happened?" asked the Proprietor as the Press Agent sighed.
"Well, Merritt always had presence of mind, and as the sport gathered up our hard earned shekels he grabbed me by the arm and hurried me from the building. He knew that a Bowery audience was apt to follow cat-calls with antique eggs and vegetables of last season's vintage, and five minuteslater we were trying to drown our sorrow.
"'Jim,' says Merritt, 'I made a big mistake, for I should have tattooed him. His beauty was only skin deep and the blame snake shed his skin.'"
Uncle Samspends a large amount of money to forecast the weather twenty-four hours in advance, and the farmers and seafaring folk watch the bulletins no more eagerly than do the owners of the many shows whose harvest time is the brief summer season at Coney Island. Bad weather, especially if it comes on the first or last day of the week or a legal holiday, means a loss of hundreds of dollars to them, for if the skies are threatening, the holiday makers seek their pleasures nearer home and there are fewer people to give up their dimes and quarters under the seductive wheedling of the "barkers." Most of the show people look anxiously at the sky before retiring for the night, but there is one of them who finds an absolutely reliable forecast within thewalls of his own building. Perhaps the signs and portents could not be translated by the weather clerk, but the Proprietor of the trained animal exhibition at Dreamland has been all of his life the companion of his charges, and has learned to recognize the meaning of unusual behavior or the shade of change in their voices which indicates an approaching storm.
There was not a cloud to be seen, and every star in the heavens was trying to rival the brilliant electric lights on the great tower as he sat at the café table in front of the Arena with the Stranger and the Press Agent after the night's performance was over, but he gave an exclamation of disappointment as a half-smothered roar came from the throat of one of the lions in the building.
"Rain to-morrow!" he said as the grumbling roar spread from cage to cage about the great semicircle. His companions smiled incredulously as they looked at the cloudless sky, but he repeated his prediction when the Stranger read "Fair and warmerto-morrow" from one of the evening papers. "I know all about the 'high and low pressure areas,'" he said, as he glanced at the chart. "A man in the show business has to study everything which may influence the attendance, but the behavior of my animals is a better barometer for local conditions than any aneroid which the Weather Bureau owns. In spite of the clear sky and the official predictions, I would wager that we shall have a bad storm within the next twenty-four hours, for those lions have the inherited knowledge of hundreds of generations of jungle-bred ancestors whose food supply depended largely upon the weather conditions."
"Do the other animals possess the same barometric accomplishments?" asked the Stranger skeptically, and the Proprietor laughed as he invited him to come inside and judge for himself. The Arena was always an uncanny place at night, for in the dim light only the glowing eyes of the animals could be distinguished in the cages, and the snarls and growls which came from behindthe gratings conjured up visions of what might happen if one of the animals were loose and crouching on the seats of the auditorium or in the galleries, waiting for a meal of human flesh; but to-night it was worse than usual, for the unwonted restlessness of the animals was apparent even to the untrained senses of the Stranger.
The carnivora in captivity retain the habits of their relatives of the jungle and are more alert at night than in the daytime, but following a hard day's work in the exhibition cage they usually settle down for a few hours of sleep after receiving their evening allowance of meat. Although it was long past their resting time, not an eye was closed, and hundreds of pairs of bright spots were visible in the darkness as the beasts paced uneasily from end to end of their narrow dens. The elephants, whose arduous duties in the ring and on the ballyhoo brought such leg weariness that they were usually glad to be shackled for the night, were swaying their huge bodies from side to side and straining at the stout chainswhich fastened them and the shrill trumpeting of Tom, the largest one, was echoed and repeated by his companions, Roger and Alice. The roaring of the lions and the snarling of the tigers was mocked by the hideous laugh of the hyenas, and the discord of the strange noises was so disagreeable that the Stranger was relieved when they left the Arena and returned to the comparative quiet of the white-topped table.
"Every one of the great beasts jumped for her."
"It will be a severe storm," said the Proprietor as the waiter took their orders. "Any impending change makes them uneasy, but when every animal in the menagerie is in the state of excitement which you noticed to-night you can be assured that it means a very decided disturbance. It is a thing which animal trainers are ever watchful about, for most of the training is done at night, and it is not safe to work with them when they are in that frame of mind."
"But you give your advertised performances just the same," said the Press Agent.
"That's a different matter," answered the Proprietor. "When the Arena is lighted upand filled with people, the attention of the animals is distracted and they forget their nervousness, but a rehearsal at night is a lonesome proceeding, at best, and as the trainer devotes his attention to a single animal at a time it leaves the others free to think up mischief or to give way to their unreasoning fear. I had that borne in upon me in a way I shall never forget a few years ago when I was a younger hand at the business. I knew a good deal about handling animals, but not as much about managing men as I have learned since, and I used to forget that giving an order was not the same thing as seeing that it was executed. There was a trainer named Barton in my employ who did a pretty fair act with a group of six lions, but he was a brutal sort of a chap and punished his animals so severely that they went through their performance on the jump so as to get out of the exhibition cage, where blows were more plentiful than kind words. His act was a winner, all right, for he was absolutely fearless and the animals put up a bluff of snarling and snappingwhich made it exciting, but I disliked the man so much that I was glad to farm him out for a ten weeks' engagement on the vaudeville circuit.
"He wasn't a bad-looking chap and when he came back from his tour he brought with him one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She was an Egyptian who had been brought to this country with a troupe of dancers for one of the big exhibitions, and he met her and married her when they were performing in the same theater. Of course, I had absolutely no use for an Egyptian dancer with my show and I made the marriage an excuse to get rid of Barton; but he begged me to keep him on the plea that he was teaching her to do his act with the lions. She was so beautiful that I realized that she would be a great drawing card if she developed into a good trainer, so I consented and signed a contract with him for another year. I regretted it when I saw the first rehearsal, for it was painfully evident that she went into the cage only because she was more afraid of her husband than she was of thelions, and I didn't blame her; for while I might interfere to prevent ill-treatment of the lions, which were my property, I had no authority to protect her from his cruelty. They did most of the rehearsing at night, and I trusted to the fear which Barton had instilled in the lions to keep them from attacking her, for he always stood at the bars and they would cower down at the sound of his voice. You know it is never safe for two people to be in the cage with a group of animals at the same time unless they stand back to back and keep in one place, for if they are moving about an animal may run into one while endeavoring to escape from the other, and even the blow from a lion's tail might knock a man from his feet and then there would be trouble.
"Jim," says Merritt, ... "there is a great advantage in having a squaw for the top part of that there fish."
"Poor little Leotta used to go into the cage and try to keep the tell-tale tremble out of her voice when she gave her commands, but she could never learn to concentrate her whole attention on the animals and give up looking for a sign of approval from Barton out of the corner of her eye. I made it apoint to see that there was always plenty of assistance near in case of accidents, and gave Barton strict orders to keep her out of the cage when the animals were under the influence of 'weather fear.' It was difficult for me to instruct or warn Leotta, for she understood English very little; but I helped her all I could, and gave her husband to understand that I would not allow any ill-treatment.
"In spite of all my precautions, I was always uneasy when she was in the cage, and when I had to be away from the show she was constantly in my mind. I had to go to the wharf one afternoon to superintend the unloading of a new lot of animals which had been sent from our English quarters, and owing to delays at the custom house it was late at night before I could start back for the show. Perhaps I had absorbed some of the weather wisdom of the animals from long association with them, but, at any rate, I was uneasy at the delays and as I whizzed along in the trolley I congratulated myself on my foresight in having warned Barton,as the thunder heads were gathering and I knew the animals would have the jumps and be unsafe to work with. But my heart sank as I drew near the building and saw that it was brilliantly lighted up, for that could only mean one thing at that time of night—Leotta must be rehearsing. The trainers usually have but one small cluster of lights, but I had ordered the electrician to turn on all the switches when she was in the cage, as I thought she would be less frightened and the animals more tractable in the full light.
"My guess was right: Barton, in disobedience of orders, had made her go into the cage, and he had taken advantage of my absence to break our iron-clad rule which forbids a trainer to drink. I saw the whole situation as soon as I entered the building, and I would have given the whole show to have the little woman safely on the right side of the bars. The animals in the dens were raising a worse row than they did to-night, and the lions in Leotta's group had forgotten their fear of the trainer in their greaterfear of the approaching storm. They were ugly, and Barton, who was more than half-seas over, stood at the bars shouting abuse at his wife and the lions and jeering at her evident terror. I saw that the other trainers and keepers appreciated the danger, for they were gathered around, holding iron bars, Roman candles and pistols; but they had sense enough to know that any interference which would draw his attention from the cage would precipitate the trouble, and none of them could make Leotta appreciate the danger of her position. I went up to him quietly and told him that I thought he had better call the rehearsal off for the night, intending to square accounts with him as soon as Leotta was safely out of the cage; but the drink was in his brain and he turned on me and cursed me. Leotta gave a scream of terror as the brute turned his back on the cage and, as if by a preconcerted plan, every one of the six great beasts jumped for her.
"Barton knew that the game was up, and in his drunken rage he attacked me and itkept my hands full to manage him; but the others rushed for the cage, and while Bonavita and Stevenson beat off the lions with the help of the keepers on the outside who were firing pistols and Roman candles and using fire-extinguishers through the bars, Bobby Mack picked up Leotta and carried her outside. Of course, that ended Leotta's career in the show business and finished Barton's employment with me. The poor little thing's beauty was gone, for a lion's claws make deep cuts, and it was many a day before she was able to leave the hospital. You can see that I have reason to be confident of the accuracy of the predictions of my weather bureau, for if there had been no thunderstorm brewing I might have developed a sensational lion act."
"Or if Leotta had understood English," commented the Press Agent, as he beckoned to the waiter. "Of course, it is sometimes an advantage to have performers who can't converse with the audience, but it is mighty inconvenient if they can't understand the orders of the boss. I lost the chance of makinga lot of money once, because a squaw who was working for us couldn't understand the white man's lingo. A guy named Merritt and myself were disappointed about getting a concession for a snake show at the Pan-American Exposition, and we found ourselves broke in Buffalo, which is separated from the Bowery by about five hundred miles of very tough walking when you haven't got the price of a railway ticket. Merritt was mad clean through at being thrown down by the Exposition managers, but he was an inventive genius and I knew that he would figure out a way to raise the price of transportation.
"A howl of terror from the platform."
"'Jim,' says he as we counted up our available assets and found that they were pretty well along toward a minus quantity, 'it makes me dead sore to be turned down this way without getting a run for our money, and it's up to us to increase our capital and incidentally give the bunch that done us dirt the double cross. Get your think tank working and see what it will produce.' I couldn't see a way out, but whena squaw from the Tonawanda Reservation, who was selling trailing arbutus, came up to us and offered us a nosegay, Merritt gives a whoop and claps me on the shoulder.
"'Jim,' says he, 'I've got it and we'll make our everlasting fortunes!' He commenced to question the squaw, but all the English she knew was 'ten cent a bunch,' and he didn't make much headway until a big buck Injin who had been watching her from across the street came over and butted in. It appeared that he was her husband, and when Merritt stated his proposition the buck accepted the terms without the formality of consulting the squaw. When the Exposition opened we had a big tent on an open lot across from the main entrance, with a life-sized picture of 'The Marvelous Mermaid' as big as a house. As I remarked, Merritt was an inventive genius and he had worked up a scheme to deceive the confiding public. He had provided a platform and carefully cut out a hole so that the squaw could stand on the ground and the edges of the hole fitted snugly about herwaist. He made her lean forward and rest her chin in her hands in the conventionally accepted mermaid position, and then he fitted a fish tail which lay along the top of the platform, and it was so skillfully joined to her that it looked as if it grew there. She was a good-looking squaw and she certainly played her part and made an interesting picture.
"Of course, he couldn't explain to her what he wanted her to do, but he would tell the buck, who would carefully translate and impress the instructions upon her memory with the aid of a bale stick. The thing which he put most stress upon was that she was to remain absolutely still, no matter what happened. I sold the tickets and put up the spiel on the front, and Merritt lectured inside and we did a land-office business. Lots of smart guys came around and tried to get gay with the mermaid, but she couldn't understand their joshing and never cracked a smile. The blame tent caught fire one night when it was filled with people, and she had such a wholesome recollection of the balestick that she kept as still as a cigar-store Indian until we had cleared the place and put the fire out.
"'Jim,' says Merritt as he looked her over admiringly after that experience, 'there is a great advantage in having a squaw for the top part of that there fish. She can't understand what the Willie boys say to her and nothing feazes her. A white gal would have had hysterics and given the whole snap away.' It gave Merritt a lot more confidence and we felt pretty safe after that experience, and neglected to have the buck repeat his bale-stick admonitions to her upon the necessity of cultivating repose of manner. Everything was lovely and we were turning hundreds of people away and making more money than the big show. One afternoon we were playing to a record house and Merritt was doing himself proud on his lecture.
"'Ladies and gentlemen,' says he, 'I have the honor to present to this intelligent audience a creature which is commonly, but erroneously, supposed to be extinct at the presentday; but you have before you a living and convincing proof that mermaids still exist. I confess that until I was able to obtain this unique specimen, which was captured while basking in the sun and singing a love song upon an iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean, I shared the opinions of my fellow scientists that the mermaid was a fabulous or extinct creature; for during a lifetime devoted to exhibiting the mysterious marvels of nature to the American public it had never been my good fortune to acquire one. You will observe that she is half woman and half fish, and she is perfectly helpless when out of the water. She is unfortunately unable to express herself in any known tongue; in fact, she has never uttered a sound since her capture and we fear that she has lost her voice, which—' Just then he was interrupted by a howl of terror from the platform, which was followed by a roar of laughter from the audience, and when he turned he saw the squaw standing up and trying to wrap the fake tail around a pair of well-developed, copper-colored legs. Her face was as paleas a squaw's face could get and Merritt knew the jig was up. I was peeking in the door, and when I saw what had happened I gathered up the box-office receipts and faded away. I met Merritt that evening in our usual saloon, and underneath a pair of black eyes and a battered-up phiz I could see that he was wearing a look of deep disgust.
"'Jim,' says he, 'this is what comes from pinning your faith to a woman and not appreciating the weakness of the sex. She faced the danger of being burned alive and never turned a hair; but when she saw a measly little mouse crawl under the platform she busted up the whole show.'"
The Stranger said good-night and started for the city, but before he reached the railway station he was drenched by the downpour which the Proprietor had predicted.
"Youwere not in this part of the country when New York was in an uproar for two days over the escape of one of my lions," said the Proprietor to the Stranger as they joined the Press Agent. "I suppose that ninety per cent. of the people who remember it think that it was all a fake, but I can assure you that I put in the most strenuous forty-eight hours of my career while he was loose, and it pretty nearly decided me to give up the show business. It was my first experience at running an independent show, and after great persuasion I had induced my father to let me bring some boxing kangaroos, two young lions and Wallace, a fine big brute about fifteen years old, from our English establishment to the States. Wallace was already a famous—or infamous—lion inEngland, where he had the score of three trainers to his credit. He had received the name of 'The Mankiller' over there, and they were rather relieved to have me get him out of the country.
"His last victim was a Frenchman, one of the best-known trainers in the business, and he went into the cage to subdue Wallace on a wager. He won, and a remarkable performance it was, but I won't take the time to tell you about that now. He made just one little mistake: his vanity got the better of him when he turned his back on the lion to bow to the audience after remaining in the cage for ten minutes. As I said, he won the bet, and it about paid the funeral expenses of what was left of him. After that the only man who could go near Wallace was a half-breed American Indian from up near Cape Cod; Broncho Boccacio, he called himself. I don't know what the other half of him was, and I don't remember how he happened to be with our English show, but all sorts and conditions of men drift into the animal training business. At any rate, hewas the only man who could do anything with Wallace, and that wasn't much. He would get into the cage and chase him around a bit and then jump out quick—always backward after seeing what happened to the Frenchman. I brought him along to take especial charge of the brute. It took a couple of days to get the animals through the customs, and in the meantime I cast about for quarters and finally rented a stableon Eighteenth Street to keep them in until I should secure an engagement." He took a pencil from his pocket and drew a plan on the white table top.
"There was a loose lion downstairs and a nurse and two children in the loft."
"The stable was arranged in this way: here in the front was the carriage house with these narrow stairs at the side leading up to the loft. On each side of the door was a window facing on the street, and back of the carriage room was the stable proper—two stalls and a loose-box. On one side of the stable was a saloon and on the other a carpenter shop, so I didn't expect much complaint from my neighbors, as my men patronized one, while I ordered the carpenter to build a traveling cage for Wallace which would slide on wheels, as our English cages were too heavy to handle in a country where labor is as high as it is here. I moved the lions up to the stable to let them rest a bit after the voyage and started to look for an engagement. It was a hard row to hoe, as I was not known in this country, and the best I could do was a booking at a dime museum for a month, and I had to take a lowish priceat that, but I ordered a big nine sheet poster and trusted to luck to make more out of them later.
"The lions were in three cages in the stable, and in one of the stalls I had a trotting horse which had been purchased for my brother in England, and which I kept there until I should have an opportunity to ship it to the other side. The kangaroos were in the loft, and a couple of days after they were all settled my two little girls came over from the hotel with me one morning and went up there with the nurse to play with them while I went into the carpenter shop next door to settle for the new cage, which had just been delivered. Broncho, as soon as he struck his native soil, had discovered a camp of other Indians on the Bowery and spent most of his time in their encampment, leaving a Cockney Englishman in charge of the lions and the horse. I intended to wait until he arrived before shifting Wallace to the new cage, but the Englishman thought he would show his cleverness and attempted to do it alone without waiting for us. Hethrew a piece of meat into the new cage and then rolled it up to the old one, and when the doors were opposite each other he opened them. Of course Wallace made a spring for the meat in the new cage, but he struck the edge of the door, and as the Cockney had neglected to block the wheels the cage rolled away and the keeper gave a yell and bolted for the stairs. There was a loose lion downstairs—and a bad one at that—and the nurse and two children in the loft.
"The first I knew of it was from the nurse, who had grabbed the children and stood with them in the door which had been used to pass the hay in, yelling 'Fire!' and 'Murder!' but I knew that there was hell to pay as soon as I reached the street, by the sound which came from the stable. We got a ladder from the carpenter shop and hustled the nurse and children down to the street, and then I went up to the loft, while the nurse and the Cockney held the small door from the stable to the street, which could not be fastened from the outside until the carpenter spiked some plank over it.
"A look into the stable convinced me that I did not want to go down the stairs, for with one blow Wallace had converted a thousand-dollar trotting horse into two dollars' worth of lion meat, and he was crouched on the body, which he had dragged from the stall, clawing at its throat and drinking the blood. The place looked like a shambles, and the growls which came from Wallace as the other lions threw themselves against the bars of their cages in their efforts to get out and join in the feast were redoubled when he caught sight of my head through the trap-door.I slammed it down and drew the kangaroo cage on top of it and then went down to the street to see that the windows and doors were securely boarded up. A great crowd was gathering and I was afraid that the police would shoot the brute, for I saw the possibilities of an advertisement which would more than pay for the expensive meal which Wallace was making from the trotting horse.
"His vanity got the better of him when he turned his back on the lion, to bow to the audience."
"Just as I reached the street, Broncho strolled up. As I said, he was a queer-looking guy; his skin was copper-colored and he had piercing black eyes and long, fuzzy black hair which fell down to his shoulders. His nose was hooked and something about his face always reminded me of a bird of prey. He was only a half-breed, but when I told him what had occurred he was all Indian and he drew a long knife and started for the Cockney, who gave only one look at the expression on Broncho's face and then started for Harlem, touching only the high spots until he was quite out of sight. Broncho didn't chase him; he just looked afterhim with a smile on his face, glad to see him disappear, as there had been more or less bad blood between them for a long time. Then he came to me and laughed at the idea of danger and offered to go into the stable and put Wallace back in the cage. I knew that it would be impossible until the lion had gorged himself on horse meat, and now that the damage was done I was in no hurry to allay the excitement until the police and reporters arrived. We didn't have to wait long, for the crowd had grown until the street was blocked, and, of course, the reporters asked more than a thousand questions. When I had worked the sensation up pretty well I consented to let Broncho take his training rod and go down, and I went with him carrying a club and a pitchfork. Things commenced to happen right away, for Wallace didn't wait for the call of time, but sailed right into us, and when I saw that he was getting the better of Broncho I made a bluff at going back to the carcass of the horse. Wallace bounded back to protect it and crouched on it, snarling viciously, butthe delay gave me a chance to help Broncho up the stairway. There was not enough of his trousers left to wad a gun, and while I was bandaging up a deep claw wound in his thigh that advertisement seemed less and less important to me, and I would have given a good deal to have Wallace safely behind the bars of his cage again. He was contracted for four weeks anyway, and it takes a pretty big sensation to be remembered for more than thirty days in New York.
"Well, we fussed about all day, trying to figure out some way to get the beggar back in his cage, and I got an earache listening to advice from people who had never seen a lion, but who considered themselves experts. At sunset Wallace still held the fort and the streets were blocked in all directions, for the afternoon papers were out with extras with scare-heads. The boards over the windows made the interior of the stable so dark that no one could see into it, but the roars which came from it gave the spectators all the thrills they were entitled to and caused a stampede every few minutes. We tried todrive Wallace into the cage with a stream of water from the fire plug, but he only shook his head and growled at it, so we gave it up and waited for daylight. There were about forty policemen and a crowd of reporters about the place all night, and I was getting nervous for fear some fool would shoot the lion, whose value was increasing every minute,so I kept awake and did a heap of thinking.
"Broncho was only a half-breed."
"I knew that Wallace would fight for his 'kill' as long as any of the meat was left, so we rigged up a tackle to try and draw the carcass out. We were all ready at daylight and the crowd was bigger than ever. Say, if you want to count the idle people in New York just get up a free show at any hour of the day or night and they will all come. There must have been over a thousand loafing about the street all night. We were just getting ready to make a try for the horse when the idlers outside gave a cheer, and I saw an express wagon loaded with nets and ropes and all sorts of animal catching stuff drive up. Tody Hamilton, Barnum's press agent, had caught on to the possibilities of an advertisement, and sent to the winter quarters at Bridgeport for some of their animal men to come down and capture a loose lion. They supposed it was in Central Park, and when they found it was in a stable the job looked easy to them. One of them, a man named McDonald, had beenwith our English show, and when he heard that it was Wallace they were to tackle his enthusiasm seemed to melt. He told the others a few anecdotes of the lion, and two of them went to find the Cockney, I guess, for we never saw them again.
"We managed to throw a slip noose around the carcass from the stairs, and when we passed the end of the rope out of the window there must have been five hundred men pulling on it from the way that horse's body slid across the floor. The four of us stood around the trap-door to beat Wallace back, and when he realized that he was losing his prey it kept us busy.
"Say, a dead horse seems to have more legs than a centipede when you try to drag it through a narrow space, and they all stick out in different directions. Of course, this one stuck and then there was more trouble, for when I took an axe to dismember it, a cop threatened to arrest me for cutting up a horse in the city limits. It took three hours to satisfy the red-tape requirements and get a permit from the Board of Health, andthen I had a long, sickening job, for we had to haul up what was left of the poor beast in fragments, and all the time Wallace was snapping at them or rushing at us. We gave him several nasty cracks over the snout, the only place where a lion seems to be sensitive to pain, but it only made him uglier than ever and I knew that there was a pretty fight ahead of us. It was a case of 'Perdicaris alive or Raisouli dead' with me, for the police were getting impatient, and I knew they would shoot him if we did not get him caged before night.
"We drew lots to see who should be the first to go down, and I think that McDonald stacked the straws, for Broncho won—or lost—I was second, the other Barnum man third and McDonald last; but he made good after we got down there, and it was what the President would have called a 'crowded hour.' If Wallace hadn't been full of horse meat, which made him a trifle slow, I think he would have chased the bunch of us out, and as it was he gave us all we wanted to do. We used blank cartridges, Roman candles,training rods and whips, and I learned afterward that the crowd outside thought we were all being torn to pieces, but we finally conquered and it was a singed and battered lion which jumped back into the den and gave me a chance to slam the door. The noise of the clicking lock sounded good to me, and I went up the stairs with a lighter heart, in spite of tattered clothes and a scratched hand and bruised body. I knew that I had a small fortune in the beast, but I nearly cried whenI went into the saloon to freshen up, and the first thing I saw was the poster with the announcement that Wallace would be shown at the dime museum. I knew that it would make the reporters, who had been writing columns of space, suspect that it was all a fake and prearranged. The manager was afraid that I would renege on my contract after all the free advertising, but he didn't know me.
"We didn't have any regular snake charmer, but Merritt made himself up for a Hindoo fakir."
"Sure enough, the reporters came for me in a body while I was still tired and dirty from the fight and worn out with anxiety and loss of sleep. They accused me of having put up a job on them, but I guess the sight of my condition convinced them of my sincerity, for only one paper even hinted at any crookedness, and that proved the best advertisement in the whole business.
"It was theSunwhich came out in an article about Wallace, saying that he was toothless and decrepit from old age, and that there had never been the slightest danger from him. If the reporter who wrote it had gone into the stable with us, I don'tthink he would have written the article. I did my own announcing in those days and I always started off with the announcement, 'Ladies and gentlemen! If you see it in theSun, it's so, and theSunsays that Wallace is played out and toothless from old age.' Then I would make a move to the front of the cage, and Wallace, who had a special hatred for me, would spring at the bars and show as pretty a set of fangs as you would wish to see and I was always sure of a laugh.
"Well, I showed Wallace in New York and other cities for thirty straight weeks and got back the value of that trotter a good many times over," continued the Proprietor as he rose from the table. "His name is one to conjure with, even yet, and nearly every lion which is exhibited in the side shows at the county fairs is billed as 'Wallace, the Untamable!' The original Wallace is still alive and at our English breeding establishment." He said good-night and left the table, the Press Agent looking regretfully after him.
"That's just like the boss," he complainedas he watched the retreating figure. "He takes the center of the stage until he has told his story, and when my turn comes to get in the limelight he does the disappearing act. That was a pretty good story, but talking of escapes, I can tell you about an escape that is worth talking about. It happened when a guy named Merritt and myself were running a snake show next to a camp meeting down on the Jersey coast. We didn't have any regular snake charmer, but we bought a lot of wrigglers from a dealer down on the Bowery and Merritt made himself up for a Hindoo fakir. He would get into the cage with them and those snakes would wrap themselves about him from his head to his toes and it was an awe-inspiring sight. He taught them to stand up on their tails and dance while he played on a tin whistle and to do other pretty little tricks, but the great and original stunt was what he called the 'Interminable Snake,' when one would grab the biggest snake's tail in his mouth, another would fasten onto him, and so on until the whole blame lot looked like one bigserpent. Say, those snakes got so stuck on that game that they would do it for sport without the word of command. Whenever one started to move around the cage another would grab his tail, and the first thing you knew the whole bunch was going around in a string and the sight of it was enough to make a man swear off for a year.
"We were doing a fine business until a temperance lecturer set up a show a little way off, and that cut into us so that there was nothing much doing. The crowd would walk right past the entrance to our 'Highly Moral and Instructive Exhibition,' and go on to listen to the temperance guy telling them about the evils of drink, as illustrated by the horrible living examples which he had upon the platform. You see that was a free show, while ours cost a quarter—and cheap at the price.
"One afternoon after I had cracked my voice trying to draw the crowd without landing one of 'em, Merritt comes to me, and as we saw the crowd pouring in to thetemperance show, we looked at each other and shook our heads in sorrow.
"'Jim,' says Merritt, 'that guy down there has got you skinned to death on the ballyhoo, and it's up to you to go over there and get next to the attraction and see if we can't cop it out for our show. I hate to ask it of you,' says he, 'knowing your views on the temperance question, but business is business and this ain't no time for sentiment.' It went against the grain, but I knew it must be done, so I went down to the lecture. I wasn't wise to the game, but I was anxious not to miss a trick, so I went right up to the front, and the first thing I knew I was seated on the mourners' bench, right under the platform. As soon as the lecturer came on I piped him for a guy that used to pull teeth on the Bowery with a brass band accompaniment and a gasoline torch, and I remembered that at that time he could punish more booze than any man I ever knew. He had the gift of gab all right, and he had picked up a couple of panhandlers for horrible examples and theylooked the part. If either one of them had ever drawn a sober breath in twenty years he should have sued his face for libel, and they looked as if they had been towed behind a trolley car from the Battery to Fort George.
"Well, the ex-jaw carpenter cut loose in good form, and he soon had every one worked up, telling the horrible things which alcohol did to your interior lining, and giving a description of the menagerie which a man sees when he has the jim-jams, which would have done credit to the boss lecturer in there." He pointed with his thumb to the Arena, and the alert waiter, taking it for a signal, refilled the glasses.
"He did it so well that he sort of had me going, and I was beginning to think that possibly I was taking a trifle too much," continued the Press Agent, as he sampled the fresh drink. "I was giving the matter serious thought, when my attention was attracted by one of the panhandlers who was nudging his partner.
"'Bill,' says he, 'tell the old man to puton full steam ahead, for I'm backsliding and need encouragement. I'm afraid I've got 'em again. Look there!' Bill looks down the aisle and gets uneasy, too.
"'Hank,' says he, 'I've got 'em, likewise, only that ain't my usual kind of snake, coz he ain't got no plug hat with a red flannel band on it; but it's me for the bromide and the simple life.'
"'It's this damn Jersey whiskey that's changed 'em,' answers Bill. 'Mine always has gorillas ridin' 'em.' Well, I looked around and I would have been scared myself if I hadn't recognized our own bunch of snakes, each one of 'em with the tail of the snake in front of him in his mouth. Old 'Limber Larry'—we called him that on account of his habit of going to sleep curled up in a true lover's knot—was in the lead, and behind him came about half a mile of snakes.
"They were festooning themselves up the aisle, coming slow, because there were a couple of them which could not move very fast, and when the gait got too lively theyused to bite their leaders' tails. Old Larry was raising his head and looking around every few feet, and just when the lecturer had reached the most thrilling part of his 'Ten Nights in a Barroom' spiel he caught Larry's eye and the meeting adjourned,sine die, right there. You couldn't see him for dust as he broke for the nearest 'speakeasy,' and the two panhandlers were hanging on to his coat tails.
"Just then Merritt comes in looking worried, for he had gone to sleep and let 'em get away from him, but when he sees 'em he takes his tin whistle out of his pocket and goes back to the show, tooting it like a blasted Pied Piper, the snakes following along as meek as Mary's little lamb, and most of the audience goes with him at a quarter per."
"Did business improve?" asked the Stranger.
"Improve? Why, my boy, after we put that temperance show out of business we just turned 'em away for three months. Not only did we do a good business, but thehotel people put us on the free list at the bar, because Merritt used to take 'em down in 'Interminable Snake' formation for a dip in the ocean every morning, and the hotel press agent wrote it up as the daily appearance of the gigantic sea serpent."
A delegationfrom the National Association of Press Agents which was holding its annual meeting in the interests of the Furtherance of Truth and the Elevation of the Show Business had left the meeting place in New York, and after inspecting the various moral and entertaining performances at Coney Island was gathered about one of the white-topped tables near the Dreamland tower. Colonel Tody Hamilton, prince of press agents, master of a picturesque vocabulary, inventor of superlatives in the English language and champion of veracity, pointed laughingly toward the Arena, where the Proprietor of the trained animal exhibition was instructing a new barker how to make the most out of a trick of one of the elephants which was being used for ballyhoopurposes in front of the entrance to his show.
"Listen to him, gentlemen, and you will be convinced that he is eligible to membership in our truth-loving fraternity," he remarked admiringly. The ungainly pachyderm was standing on its hind legs, trumpeting through its upraised trunk a protest against the prodding of the sharp goad which was forcing it to walk backward in that absurd position. The voice of the Proprietor, who was using a megaphone, came to them distinctly as he invited the people to look at "One of the greatest triumphs of the animal trainer's art; something which has never been exhibited in any country—an elephantWALKING UPON ITS HIND LEGS, BACKWARD!"
The speech caught and held the attention of the crowd, and when the elephant was allowed to rejoin its companions and the three great beasts entered the building in single file, Tom grasping Roger's tail in his trunk and Alice following suit with the caudal appendage of Tom, a goodly numberstepped up to the ticket booth and paid their entrance money. The Colonel and his associates, whose business had made them familiar with elephants, smiled at the credulity of the crowd, but acknowledged the Proprietor's skill in attracting an audience.