Part 7 (1/2)
”Women _are_ difficult to understand,” agreed the Press Agent as the Proprietor paused to moisten his throat, ”and a man who is in love with one of 'em is just about as unaccountable for his actions. I had that fact engraved upon the tablets of my memory when a guy named Merritt and myself were running a dime museum in Pittsburg. Merritt was a good, hard-headed business man as a rule and he made a first-cla.s.s lecturer; but when I found that he was taking to 'dropping into poetry' and delivering his descriptions of the freaks in verse, I began to get leary about the condition of the contents of his head. The poetry was always extemporaneous and was pretty bad, but it amused the crowd when it wasn't too sentimental.
”As I say, the poetry was strictly on the b.u.m, but what it lacked in quality it made up in quant.i.ty and he could spiel it off by the yard.
Whenever he got stuck for a rhyme he would blow the whistle which he used to call the crowd in front of the freak he was lecturing about and move to the next platform. That didn't happen often, but whenever we had a Circa.s.sian Beauty among the freaks Merritt's poetry got so sentimental that no one but a bride and groom could stand for it--and it had to be early in the honeymoon at that. He would ring in turtle doves and azure skies and all the wishy-washy things in natural history and mythology and it was positively sickening.
”He sure had a soft place in his heart for Circa.s.sian Beauties, and as they were as common as wire tappers on Broadway under a reform administration he was always getting sentimental. We used to get a new lot of freaks each week; our agent in New York engaged 'em and sent on the advertising matter ahead, and when we looked over the list I could see Merritt's face brighten up if there happened to be one of the fuzzy blondes included in the bunch.
”Business was good, in spite of Merritt's poetry, so that I didn't kick when I saw that another one was coming. It was a good a.s.sortment: a Legless Wonder, The Man Who Breaks Paving Stones With His Bare Fists, a pair of Siamese Twins, a Leopard Boy and a particularly fuzzy Circa.s.sian Beauty. I saw Merritt's eyes grow soft when he looked at her photograph, and I prayed for a large proportion of the newly wedded among the audience that week.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _”He made sheep's eyes and threw a chest.”_]
”Well, Merritt starts in with the Stone Breaker and restrains himself pretty well; the only sentiment he got in was a fervent wish that 'a certain blonde beauty, with eyes of cerulean blue, would not break a heart which time would prove tender and true,' as ruthlessly as this man cracked rocks. He was gradually working up to the blonde, you understand, and he got warmer as he approached. The next one was the Legless Wonder, and he got a little tangled up in his comparisons when he sprung his poetry about him and tried to ring in the Circa.s.sian, and he had to blow his whistle like blazes to spare the blushes of the audience. The Siamese Twins gave him a good opening about 'bonds eternal' and the 'season vernal' and he didn't do a thing with it. The Leopard Boy was a cinch for him as he declaimed that
”'They say that beauty is but skin deep.
And as you gaze upon this freak, You will, I think, agree with me, That though beneath he fair may be, You'd much prefer to look the same As the fair being who next will claim Our admiration and attention, With charms too numerous to mention.'
”That made the Leopard Boy mad, for you know that freaks are as proud of their deformities as a mother is of a new baby, and look on normal people as objects of pity. But Merritt blew his whistle and pa.s.sed on to the Circa.s.sian, and he made sheep's eyes and threw a chest as his fingers toyed with her peroxide locks. Say, it was sickening to listen to, and I saw that even the Stone Breaker was showing signs of distress and couldn't stand much of it. He bore up pretty well at first, while Merritt stuck to describing the 'golden locks and eyes of blue,' but when he got to the 'sugar is sweet and so are you,' stage he commenced to get mad and moved over to the platform.
”'Say, Mag,' says he, 'get down offen dat staige an' come away from de guy. It ain't in our contrac' dat we has ter stand for his gettin' soft on youse an' stringin' youse like dat. Come down, er I'll climb up an'
break his face fer him.'
”'Sure, Mike,' says the blonde, and climbs down. That made Merritt mad and he talks real English without any poetic frills for a minute. He allowed that he could lick any Stone Breaker that ever came off the Bowery, and when he started to prove it there was a mix-up which made the breaking up of 'The Society upon the Stanislaus' look like a fist fight between two Frenchmen. The walls were covered with curiosities from all over the world, and pretty soon they were flying through the air. Merritt yanked down an Indian war club and started for the Stone Breaker and somebody swatted him over the head with a mummy. The Legless Wonder couldn't join in, but he contributed a two-headed calf which was preserved in a jar of alcohol, and the Leopard Boy grabbed a bunch of Zulu spears and prodded every one in reach. Even the blonde was something of a sc.r.a.pper and she mixed in with a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of stuffed animals and preserved specimens, to say nothing of some choice language which she hadn't learned in Circa.s.sia. The place was pretty well wrecked by the time the police arrived and separated the fighters.
”'What's all this row about, anyway?' asks the sergeant after they had quieted things down.
”'Dat guy was tryin' to get nex' to me wife, de Circa.s.sian Beaut','
answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts b.u.m poetry about her, an' I won't stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight left in him and tried to break loose, but the Circa.s.sian's remarks wilted him and I never knew him to use poetry again.
”'Aw, wot's de use, Mike?' says she. 'Youse can't crack a ting dat ain't hard, an' his sky-piece is made of mush.'”
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM
Chauncey Depew was at the bottom of all the trouble; not the punctured senator from the state of New York, but his namesake, one of the handsomest double-striped royal Bengal tigers ever captured. Depew was the central figure in the group which Miller, the trainer of tigers, had worked so hard to educate, and it was his rebellion which made the teacher's labors of years come to naught. Late in the season, after months spent in giving the finis.h.i.+ng touches to their education while they were with a small part of the show which was exhibited near Cleveland, the tigers were brought to Dreamland; a group of eight magnificent beasts, all jungle bred and each worthy of a place in any menagerie. Perhaps it was the discomfort of the journey in the small traveling cages, possibly the change in the surroundings and the nearness of the other animals excited them; but whatever the cause, there was trouble in the narrow runway at the back of the dens when they entered it to go to the exhibition cage for their first Coney Island appearance.
The sound of their snarling and growling, the reports of pistol shots and the cracking of training whips caused a sensation of uneasiness in the audience until the first tiger bounded through the door at the back of the cage, closely followed by a half-dozen others. Dangerous beasts they looked as they threw themselves against the stout bars, which rattled from the impact of their great bodies, and the front seats of the auditorium were quickly vacated by the audience. The noise in the runway continued, but the deep throaty growls which came from behind the dens were of a different quality from the snarling and yapping of the seven beasts in the exhibition cage, and when the last of the tigers appeared in the doorway the first arrivals made renewed efforts to escape through the bars.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _”The first tiger bounded through the door.”_]
It was Depew; not the good-natured-looking great cat whose ”I-have-eaten-the-canary” expression and smug whiskers had suggested his name, but a jungle tiger who had ”gone bad,” as the animal trainers call it, and who stood for a moment in the doorway, wrathfully surveying his frantic companions and selecting a victim. Froth was dripping from his snarling lips, his small eyes were blazing like two points of flame, the hair on his neck and back stood up like bristles, and his great tail struck the door-casing resounding whacks, as he lashed it from side to side. Only a moment he stood there, and then the great striped body hurtled through the air as if shot from a catapult, and covering a good twenty feet in the spring it landed fair on Bombay, one of the largest tigers in the group. The aim was a true one and the sound of breaking bone mingled with a scream of pain from his victim, as Bombay sank under the weight of the blow, his cervical vertebrae crushed between Depew's powerful jaws.
The door had been closed behind Depew when he made his spring, and the other tigers were chasing madly about the great cage, looking for a chance to escape. There was no desire to fight left in them, but when they collided with each other they snapped and struck with the instinct of self-preservation, their sharp claws and teeth cutting gashes in the sleek striped coats. It was evident that all training had been forgotten, that fear of anything so puny as man had departed from the minds of the tigers, and a groan went up from the audience when the door was opened and quickly closed behind Miller, the trainer, who stood, whip and training rod in hand, in the cage with the maddened animals. He went about his work as quietly as if it were only an ordinary performance, his object being to return his pupils to their dens before further damage was done and to try to make them recognize that they were obeying him.
Depew was still crouched on the body of his victim, biting at the neck and growling ferociously, his tail las.h.i.+ng from side to side. Miller never took his eyes from him and kept between him and the door as he called the others by name and tried to regain control of them. One tiger after another was released, glad of the opportunity to escape, as the door to the runway was opened at Miller's signal, until only Depew, the body of Bombay and the trainer occupied the cage.
The other tigers had entered into a general free fight in the runway, but the noise of their bickering was unheeded in the excitement of the contest in the exhibition cage. Depew rose as Miller cracked his whip and approached him, and made a rush which the trainer met with his p.r.o.nged training rod, driving it hard between the widely opened jaws while his whip rained blows upon the tiger's face. But he was only checked for a moment, and under his fiercer attack the trainer was forced to give ground. They were so close that the tiger could not spring, but he struck savagely with his great forepaws and tried again and again to pa.s.s the guard which Miller maintained with the training rod, using it as a fencer uses a foil. It was an unequal contest and the trainer realized that he was beaten; Depew would not be driven from the cage. The useless training whip was discarded and a savage rush from the tiger was met by a pistol shot in the face, blank cartridge, of course, but effective for a moment. Five more shots followed in quick succession and the trainer backed quickly toward the door, when his foot slipped, he was on his back, and Depew, quick to seize the advantage, stood over him.