Part 5 (2/2)
”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 complained as 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 big serpent. 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 the temperance 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 bra.s.s 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 they looked 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 gla.s.ses.
”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 put on 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 d.a.m.n 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 they used 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 the hotel 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.”
KALSOMINING AN ELEPHANT
KALSOMINING AN ELEPHANT
A delegation from the National a.s.sociation 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 ballyhoo purposes in front of the entrance to his show.
”Listen to him, gentlemen, and you will be convinced that he is eligible to members.h.i.+p 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 elephant WALKING 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 number stepped up to the ticket booth and paid their entrance money. The Colonel and his a.s.sociates, 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _”Sam Watson confessed the whole thing.”_]
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