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SIDE SHOW
STUDIES
BY
FRANCIS METCALFE
_ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY AMUSING DRAWINGS
BY OLIVER HERFORD_
NEW YORK
THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
1906
Copyright, 1905 and 1906, by
THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
First impression, March, 1906
THE OUTING PRESS
DEPOSIT, N. Y.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE LIBERTY OF FRANZ AND THE REBELLION OF FUZZY WUZZY 1
THE BITE OF A RATTLER AND THE SAD FATE OF BIG PETE 23
THE AMOROUS BABOON 45
FEEDING THE SERPENTS AND A GRAND TRANSFORMATION 67
THE LIONESS SKIRT DANCE AND THE INCONSIDERATE PYTHON 89
THE ANIMAL BAROMETER AND THE ETERNAL FEMININE 113
MAKING A STAR LION AND AN INTERRUPTED TEMPERANCE MEETING 137
KALSOMINING AN ELEPHANT 163
THE HYPNOTIC BEAR AND THE SENTIMENTAL LECTURER 183
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM 211
THE LIBERTY OF FRANZ AND THE REBELLION OF FUZZY WUZZY
THE LIBERTY OF FRANZ AND THE REBELLION OF FUZZY WUZZY
Madame Morelli, the pretty little Frenchwoman who makes a half-score of
leopards, panthers and jaguars do things which nature never intended
them to do, had finished her act and driven the snarling performers
through the narrow runway to their separate cages, fastening each one,
as she thought, securely. Two French clowns were filling in the time and
making the audience of Coney Island pleasure seekers laugh by their
antics with a performing dog, while the stage hands were bringing in the
properties for the next trained animal act, when the Proprietor came
from behind the scenes and strolled, apparently unconcerned, to the back
of the Arena, where he could command a clear view of the performance,
the audience and the cages. He said a few words to each of the trainers
and keepers whom he passed, and the Stranger, who knew the clock-like
regularity with which each one of them went through his allotted duties,
noticed an unwonted haste and suppressed excitement among them.
As he joined the Proprietor the sound of hammering mingled with the
noise of the blatant brass band and the cries of the ballyhoo spielers
for the other Dreamland attractions, which came in through the open
windows, and he saw that Stevenson, the mild eyed quiet man who is
always on hand to rescue imperiled trainers and keepers when their own
carelessness, or unexpected revolt on the part of the animals, leads to
a fight, was rapidly nailing boards over the ventilating spaces above
the cages. Madam Morelli, whip and training rod in hand, hurried from
her dressing room to the runway, and every keeper and trainer seemed to
be loitering in the space between the leopards' den and the audience.
He looked at the Proprietor inquiringly, but the little trickle of
blood which ran down his cheek from under his cap answered the question
he would have asked, an animal was loose and the Proprietor had
encountered it in his rounds. A crash of weird music from the band
drowned the sound of a cracking whip and sharp commands which came from
the runway, and announced the appearance of Brandu, the snake charmer,
in the exhibition cage, and the audience watched him play with a cobra,
all unconscious that Franz, the jaguar, which a few minutes before had
desisted from his attempt to tear the fair shoulders of Morelli only
after a dozen blank cartridges had been fired in his face, was a
gentleman-at-large in Dreamland. The Proprietor gave a sigh of relief as
the jaguar backed into his cage from the runway, snarling and striking
at the little woman who forced him backward with the whip until she was
able to slam the door and make him once more a prisoner. When she passed
them on her way back to the dressing-room, her dress was torn, and her
eyes were flashing from the excitement of the encounter and anger at the
carelessness of the carpenter who had left a board loose at the top of
the den.
[Illustration: _The table in front of the Arena._]
"Of course, that might have been a serious thing for the jaguar and for
my pocket book," said the Proprietor as three deep scratches in his head
were being plastered up. "I couldn't afford to take any chances of an
accident, and he would have been shot if he had attempted to come
through a ventilator into the Arena, but a trained animal like that is
worth a goodish bit of money. He let me know he was loose by giving me
his love pat when I was walking through the runway, and as Morelli is
the only one who can do anything with him I sent for her. She can whip
considerably more than her own weight in wild-cats, and there was not
the slightest danger to the audience, but not many men would have
relished her task of going into that passage with the beast loose on top
of the cages." He negatived the Press Agent's suggestion to make a
scare-head story of the escape for the papers, and suggested that they
should go up and hear Madam Morelli's account of it. She was sitting on
the edge of her bed, mending a rip which the jaguar's sharp claws had
made in her gown, and she shrugged her shoulders when the Stranger
inquired if she had been hurt.
[Illustration: _Two French clowns and a performing dog._]
"It was nothing," she said laughing. "He jumped at me from the top of a
cage when I came in, but I beat him off and whipped him back into his
cage. It was only the close quarters which made it bad, for I am used to
fighting them." She was interrupted by a yapping and caterwauling in the
doorway, and sprang on the bed, her face white with terror, as a small
terrier and the menagerie cat rolled into the room in a clawing, biting
mix-up. The terrier was raising a litter of puppies in the next room,
and the cat had transformed the space back of Morelli's bed into a
feline nursery, and a meeting of the two anxious mothers in the hall had
led to trouble. Madam Morelli always goes through her performance in an
evening dress, and she stood on the bed, her long train gathered closely
about her, trembling like a leaf, when the Proprietor finally separated
the combatants and restored peace.
"You wouldn't think that a woman who had just come from a fight with a
two hundred pound jaguar, which could easily tear her to pieces, would
be scared at a scrap between a toy terrier and a mongrel cat," said the
Proprietor, laughing, as he led the way to the cafe table. "But she
makes a specialty of the larger species."
"This matter of specialties seems to run through every branch of the
show business," said the Press Agent as they took their seats at the
table. "I ran a dime museum in St. Louis a few years ago--in those days
there was lots of money in it--and the freaks would never stand for any
change in their billing. We used to have a fresh lot sent on by our New
York agent every two weeks, and one Monday morning when I went down to
look over the new arrivals, I knew that he had been up against the demon
Rum, when he engaged such a tough looking bunch. The alleged fat woman
looked as if she was wasting away with consumption, and the bearded lady
had a way of absentmindedly humming the popular airs in a bass voice
which gave the whole snap away. There was one likely looking girl and
when I asked her what she was she told me she was the web-footed lady
and showed me her feet, which had little pieces of skin growing between
the toes.
"I knew that wasn't good enough, so I told her she was mistaken; that
she was a Circassian beauty, and I gave her a wig and the fixings and
put her on the platform. But say, would you believe it? She was so mad
and embarrassed by the change in her stunt that when the lecturer was
calling attention to her blond beauty, she would blush until she looked
like an Indian Princess, and every time he turned his back she would
take off her shoes and wiggle her toes at the audience to show what she
really was.
[Illustration: _"Things which Nature never intended them to do."_]
"It was up to us to get some real attraction to tide over the time until
our agent should get sober and send us another bunch of freaks, so
Merritt, who was my partner, and myself hunted up a big buck nigger and
made a deal with him to go on as a 'Wild Man.' We ripped up a hair
mattress and glued the contents onto him, and wired a couple of big
tusks to his teeth, and with an iron collar around his neck and a log
chain around his waist he was as good an imitation as was ever faked. We
put him in a big cage which we had used the week before for a mangy old
lion; one of the five hundred or so 'Wallace the Untamables' which were
touring the country, and Merritt taught him to howl like a steam
calliope.
"We called him 'Fuzzy Wuzzy, the Terrible Man-Eating Cannibal,' which
was a waste of words, but Merritt had language to burn. He had got hold
of a phony five hundred dollar bill, and when he was giving his spiel
about how Fuzzy Wuzzy was captured upon a desert island, where he was
found chewing a human leg, and how he couldn't eat anything but raw
meat, and was always trying to get at his keeper for dessert, he would
wave his phony five hundred spot over his head and give it to 'em good.
"'Five hundred dollars, ladies and gents, I will give to any man who
will remain for the short space of two minutes in the cage with Fuzzy
Wuzzy! Five hundred dollars to any man who is brave enough to run the
risk of letting this terrible man-eating cannibal get his hinder limbs
about him, for then all would be lost and Fuzzy Wuzzy would fasten his
terrible fangs in his victim's throat and suck his ber-lud.'
"Well, it was a good spiel, all right, all right, and when Merritt
struck that part one of the supers would prod up old Fuzzy, who would
rattle his chains and howl for fair, and the audience would get cold
chills down their backs. We were playing to the S. R. O., and giving so
many shows a day that Merritt pretty nearly lost his voice, and Fuzzy
had been prodded so much that he had to take his meals standing up. We
ran 'em through pretty fast, and one afternoon Merritt was just going to
give the 'All out' signal, which cleared the exhibition hall for the
next performance, when up steps a big husky black roustabout from the
levee and commences to strip off his coat.
"'Jes' a minit, boss,' says he. 'Ah reckon ah needs dat five hundred in
mah bizness,' and Merritt looks at him in astonishment.
"'My deluded colored brother,' says he, 'Do you appreciate the fact that
you are going to a certain and horrible death? If this terrible Fuzzy
Wuzzy gets his hinder limbs about you he will suck your ber-lud.'
"'Ah doan reckon he'll git me, an' ah suttenly needs de money,' answers
the coon, and continues to strip, and Merritt sizes him up and sees the
finish of Fuzzy Wuzzy, who was shaking the bars and trying to get away
from the super who was prodding him; but everybody thought he was trying
to get at the coon to make a meal of him, and some of the women folks
were getting hysterics. One of the boys had put me wise, and I broke
through the crowd and called a halt in the proceedings.
"'Ladies and gentlemen,' says I, 'I didn't believe that a man existed
who was foolhardy enough to be tempted to certain death by the lure of
a paltry five hundred dollars. But although this man is so reckless of
his own life, I must insist that he get a permit from the mayor,
relieving us from all responsibility, before we allow him to be torn
limb from limb. Return to-morrow at two o'clock, and if this man's
courage still keeps up, you will see before your shuddering eyes an
encounter which will make the historical gladiatorial combats of ancient
Rome pale into insignificance.' I could sling a few language myself,
those days, and the mayor was a friend of mine--or I thought he was--so
I figured we could catch the suckers for an admission and then call it
off, because he would refuse a permit.
[Illustration: _"Blank cartridges fired in his face."_]
"But he was onto the game and he was one of those blame fools who
thought he had a sense of humor, so he gives him a document with a big
red seal on it which looks like a doctor's diploma, which says that
Thomas Jefferson is allowed to go in and win our five hundred, and the
next day the coon shows up smiling and ready, and I knew we had to make
good somehow. I passed the word to Merritt to delay the game and make a
last grand effort to throw a scare into the coon, and he put up a spiel
to beat the band.
"'This terrible Fuzzy Wuzzy has none of the attributes of a human
being,' says he. 'He lives upon raw meat and would prefer human flesh if
he could get it. Observe the expression of ghoulish glee in his eyes as
he regards the foolhardy man who will soon furnish him such a meal as he
formerly enjoyed in his native jungle. He sleeps at night suspended from
the top bars of his cage by his claw-like hands and feet, which will
soon be tearing the flesh of this man who stands before you now, a
picture of perfect health and strength. He speaks no intelligible
language, but he utters howls and yells, which will be more horrible
than ever before when he is sucking the warm heart's be-lud of the
figure which you see before you for the last time in human shape.' Just
then the super gives Fuzzy a prod and he howls like Balaam's ass, but
the coon stands there smiling and not feazed a bit.
"'It's a sad sight,' continues Merritt, 'to see a fine man in the prime
of life, like our colored brother here, crushed into an unrecognizable
mass by the terrible hinder limbs of this man-eating cannibal and then
torn to shreds by his horrible fangs. The management of this highly
moral and intellectual show will provide a funeral for the remains, if
there are any, and now, ladies and gents, I call upon you to witness
that we are not responsible for the terrible end which awaits this
reckless man.'
"I had taken the precaution to button up the box office 'take' in my
inside pocket, and while Merritt was making a bluff at looking for the
key to the cage door I looked around to see that there was a free exit,
for the coon was standing there swelling out his chest and grinning as
if he had the five hundred already in his jeans, and I knew he couldn't
be bluffed out. Just then a typical antebellum Missourian, one of the
kind that has to be shown, steps up in front. He was tanked up until his
safety valve would have blown off if it hadn't been wired down, but he
was pretty steady on his pins when he held onto the railing in front of
the cage.
[Illustration: _"Five hundred dollars to any one who will enter the
cage."_]
"'Professah,' says he, 'did I undahstand yo' all correctly to say that
this yeah object in the cage has none of the attributes of the human
race?'
"'Correct!' says Merritt, glad of an excuse to delay things. 'He is
lower than the beasts of the field.'
"'Well, he suttenly aint much to look at,' says the Southerner, looking
him over carefully. 'He won't eat like folks--he can't talk--an' he
sleeps like a bat. I dunno why such a pusillanimous critter should
cumber the yearth,' and with that he puts his hand to his hip and pulls
out a forty-five from under the tails of his coat. Fuzzy takes one look
at it, and it didn't need any prodding to make him holler, and he tries
to tear off the false tusks.
"'Foh Gawd's sake, mistah, doan shoot!' he yells. 'Dat white mahn's been
tellin' a passel ob lies about me until ah's sartain suah somefing gwine
fer to git me. Ah can eat an' talk like any one, an' mos' ebery one
knows me about yeah wen ah ain't got dese yeah contraptions on.'
"'Shut up, you blame fool!' says Merritt. 'He won't shoot you.'
"'Mebbe he knows dat, mebbe you knows dat; but how does I know dat?'
yells Fuzzy. 'Dat gun suttenly looks big to me.'
"About this time the other coon got wise and saw the five hundred
vanishing, and the last I saw of Merritt he was trying to break a
half-Nelson that the coon had got on him and dodge the rest of the crowd
at the same time. I left St. Louis on a freight that night, wearing a
few lumps where some stray brickbats landed, and the next time I saw
Merritt was in Chicago, and he was on crutches and had his head covered
with plaster."
No thunderbolt dropped from the blue dome over the Dreamland tower, and
the Proprietor, with a childlike and bland smile on his face, motioned
to the waiter to refill the glasses.
THE BITE OF A RATTLER AND THE SAD FATE OF BIG PETE
THE BITE OF A RATTLER AND THE SAD FATE OF BIG PETE
Like the pitcher which went to the well until it met the proverbial
fate, the trainer entered the lion's den once too often, and what
remained of him was placed in an ambulance and taken to the hospital.
After the performance for the evening was over, Baltimore, the bad lion,
who had suddenly developed a craving for human flesh, had been dealt
with by the Proprietor of the menagerie in a manner which would spoil
his appetite for many a day to come and make him remember that trainers
cannot be mangled with impunity.
Most of the lights were extinguished at Dreamland, but two men sat at
the table in front of the Arena with the Proprietor, discussing the
accident and listening to stories of former encounters which he
related. His own body bears the scars of many a battle with his savage
charges, but he has discontinued giving personal exhibitions with them
in the large cage, because his wife has developed a prejudice against
having him brought to her in fragments, and he has found that the
training of trainers is a far more difficult task than the education of
wild animals.
"Yes, any man who follows this business carries his life in his hands,"
he said in answer to a question from the Stranger within the gates. "You
helped to care for poor Bonavita to-night, after Baltimore finished with
him, so you know what a lion's jaws can do. I've seen 'em chewed up as
bad as that and get over it, but they never get quite the same again.
Leave the business? No; it is like the sea: a man who takes to it keeps
it up until the time comes when he doesn't recover, but after a bad
accident he usually takes another breed of animals.
"The worst sight I ever saw was about five years ago, when one of our
performing bears turned on its trainer and seized his arm. He worried
it as a terrier would a bone for a good twenty minutes before we could
drive him off, and the bear died from the punishment we gave him. The
man's arm isn't much use to him now, but he is crazy for me to give him
another group of animals to train, which I can't do because a man needs
two good pairs of limbs when he gets into the exhibition cage." He told
of many accidents which had happened to himself and his employees, most
of them through their own carelessness, born of constant association
with their charges who never miss the opportunity which the shortest
instant of forgetfulness gives them.
[Illustration: _"A constant procession of small animals moving down his
throat."_]
"I said that bear attack was the worst sight I ever saw, and it was; but
something happened here last year which impressed me more because it was
so mysterious. A friend of mine in Florida shipped me a box of rattlers,
which he wrote had been 'attended to,' and I supposed that their poison
fangs had been extracted. They were delivered just before the
performance started and I ripped a board off the box and stuck my hand
in, grabbing them one by one and throwing them into the den as if they
were garter snakes.
"The man who took care of the snakes was out on the ballyhoo, walking
around with the gander following him to advertise the show; and when he
came in he looked them over and found that each one had as pretty a pair
of fangs as you would wish to see. He told me about it and I confess
that it gave me a gone feeling in the pit of my stomach, for I
remembered how I had felt around for them in the box with my bare
hands.
"I am pretty busy while a performance is going on, so I told him to let
them alone until I had a chance to examine them. Ninety per cent. of the
accidents which occur in a menagerie comes from the disregard of
ordinary precautions or the disobedience of orders, and I had a
presentiment that something was going to happen and I was keeping an
extra vigilant eye on the performers in the big exhibition cage. Well,
it happened, all right; but not in the way that I expected.
"The snake man instead of getting back on the ballyhoo where he
belonged, stood around the snake cage, watching the new rattlers, and
along came a couple of gazabos who commenced talking about them. One of
them was the wise guy, who always knows about how the animals are doped
so they won't bite and all that other information which isn't so. He
commenced explaining how the snakes were harmless, because their teeth
had been pulled, and giving a lot of misinformation about them. The
snake man listened until he couldn't stand it any longer and then he
stuck his hand into the cage and grabbed one of the rattlers by the
neck.
"'Fangs pulled, eh?' says he, and he made the rattler open his mouth and
show a perfect pair of stingers. The wise guy took one look at them and
fled, and the snake man would have carried it off all right, only he was
so busy calling a few choice names after him that he placed the snake
back in the cage instead of throwing it in, and the rattler struck him
before he could draw his hand out. He had a clown make-up on, so I
couldn't tell whether he was pale or not when he came to me a few
minutes later and held out his hand, but there was a queer expression on
his face and I knew that my apprehensions had not been groundless.
"There were just two little red dots, no bigger than pin heads, on the
back of his hand.
"'You got it, didn't you?' says I.
"'Good and plenty,' says he. 'My arm hurts me already.'
"We got busy right away and took him up to the hospital where Bonavita
is now. Say, he was a very thin man and you can see that I'm no
lightweight; but by midnight the right side of his body and his right
arm and leg were swollen to my size, and in the morning all of the
swollen part was as black as a coal. He was suffering terribly, and I
tried to get hold of the Arab snake doctor but couldn't locate him, so I
wired to Rochester for Rattlesnake Pete. He came down and a mighty
interesting man he is, but he couldn't do anything which 'Doc' up at the
hospital hadn't done, and it was five days before my man was out of
danger. He was not a drinking man--I finished having drunkards around my
show a good many years ago--and the whiskey took right hold of him and
pulled him through. 'Doc' kept squirting some red stuff into his arm,
but it was the 'red-eye' which saved him--and that reminds me."
[Illustration: _"The wise guy."_]
He beckoned to the waiter and each one ordered his favorite antidote for
a possible snake bite.
"Did he return to the show?" asked the Stranger, after he had rendered
himself immune.
[Illustration: _Noah listens to the tale of a Johnstown flood
survivor._]
"He sure did; you couldn't keep him away, but he has never been fond of
snakes since. It is the same man whom you saw putting the group of
elephants through their paces to-night."
It was growing late, and the Proprietor announced that he was going to
show his wife a good husband and said good-night, but the Stranger
waited for the story which he saw was trembling upon his companion's
lips, and induced the sleepy waiter to bring a farewell dose of
snake-bite antidote. The man was unknown to him by name, but his
personality promised to be interesting, for his face spoke of good
living, the red of his complexion was evidently not entirely due to
exposure to the sun, and the little sacs under the eyes indicated that
he was apt to be the last of a convivial party to suggest breaking up.
He had listened to the Proprietor's stories with the same bored
expression which Noah might wear in hearing the experiences of a
survivor of the Johnstown flood, and he looked regretfully at the vacant
chair, now that his turn had come.
"Snakes!" he exclaimed with a contemptuous snort. "What does the boss
know about 'em? I used to own the only snake that was worth having. Ever
hear of 'Big Pete'?" The Stranger confessed his ignorance, and the
other settled back in his chair and lighted a fresh cigar.
"I'll tell you about him, then. You know that a snake is a queer
proposition in a menagerie. They get sore mouths--canker the fakirs
call it--and won't eat, and then, if you've got any investment in 'em
you want to get it out mighty quick, for they are no orchids. I was
pretty well on my uppers, after a bad season on the road, when a guy
named Merritt came to me and said he could get a fine snake cheap, and
he thought we might make some money out of him by showing him to the
Rubes at the county fairs.
"What I didn't know about snakes would have filled a book, but when I
saw this one I knew it was a bargain. It was the blamedest biggest snake
that ever gave a wriggle, and the only reason its owners had not made a
fortune was because it was never properly advertised. I used to know
just how much he weighed and how long he was, but my brain got so tired
figuring up the money we made out of him that I've had no memory for
figures since.
"Well, as I said, I was pretty hard up, but I had this sparkler left for
'fall money,' and when I saw that snake I pushed it over my uncle's
counter." He pointed to a large yellow diamond in his scarf, and the
Stranger tried to make a mental calculation of a pawnbroker's valuation
of it.
"Merritt managed to dig up some mazuma, and we chipped in fifty apiece
and became the proud possessors of Big Pete. If I had been wise to the
business I would have known there was something wrong to make him sell
so cheap, but we more than got our money back out of him the first week,
so we had no kick coming. The newspaper boys were good to us and gave us
a lot of space, and we were playing on velvet and had Pete besides. It
was such a cinch that Merritt, who looked after the snake while I did
the spieling and sold tickets on the front, commenced to get worried for
fear we should lose him.
"'Jim,' says he to me one morning when business was a little dull, 'I
believe there's something phony about the blame snake. He won't eat and
I've tempted him with the best I could get. I guess I'll run down to the
Bowery and get one of those snake sharps to come up and have a look at
him; I believe his teeth need filling.'
[Illustration: _"Just two little red dots on the back of his hand."_]
"I knew he was stuck on a girl that was doing a turn in a music hall
down that way, but business was dull, so I let him go without raising a
holler. The next day he comes back with a jaw-carpenter who claimed he
knew all about snakes and when he gets through looking at Pete's mouth
we felt pretty blue.
"'Canker!' says he. 'Your little snakelet may live a month.'
"Well, that put it up to us to get busy, so I did the spieling on the
outside until my voice gave out, and Merritt lied on the inside until he
was black in the face, telling the Rubes about how many sheep old Pete
swallowed every week. We had a lot of rabbits and doves with him in the
cage, hopping and flying around behind the thick glass front, and they
were real sociable with old Pete, who never batted an eye at 'em. At the
end of the month he was looking pretty thin and we were afraid he would
peg out any day. It was hard luck on us, for things were coming our way
and our bank rolls were getting good and plenty thick and they were all
'yellow boys,' from the case card to the wrapper. Our wads grew fatter
as Pete grew thinner, and we were looking for some easy mark to unload
him onto, when one morning Merritt comes running out, just as I was
staving off a farmer who had heard him lie and brought around a flock of
scabby sheep to sell to us for snake food.
"'Jim,' he yells, grabbing me by the shoulders and waltzing around like
a whirling dervish, 'we'll make Vanderbilt and Rockefeller look like
thirty cents; old Pete has swallowed every blame pigeon and rabbit in
the coop.'
"It seemed too good to be true, but when I went to have a look there was
not a feather nor a piece of fur to be seen and old Pete was examining
all the corners of the cage to see that he hadn't overlooked a bit. He
looked a whole lot better already, and Merritt and I began to discuss
what we should do with all our money.
"But say, there was one thing we forgot to reckon on--the appetite he
had been saving for about a year, and although the money came in faster
than ever, most of it went out to the rabbit men and pigeon fanciers.
"You know that when a snake swallows an animal you can see the bulge in
him for a long time, but you couldn't see any in old Pete. He was just
the same size all the way from his nose to the tip of his tail, for
there was no space between the animals.
"Things began to look pretty serious for us, for we had used up all the
available small live stock in the surrounding country, and the Rubes got
onto the fact that we were up against their game and raised the ante on
us for what was left. It's like taking candy from a child to sell a gold
brick to a farmer, but he everlastingly gets back at you if you have to
buy any of his produce. Hungry Joe and the man who invented the
green-goods game would be skinned to death if they had to buy a dozen
eggs from one of 'em.
"And all the time old Pete kept a constant procession of small animals
moving down his throat, regardless of expense, and if the supply ran
short he would look at Merritt so reproachfully that it made him feel so
bad he couldn't deliver his lecture for sobs. He worked the pathetic on
him, but if I came around there was no 'Only three grains of corn,
mother,' expression on his face; he would just rear up on his tail and
lambaste that glass trying to get at me. I had been living pretty well
during our prosperity and I guess I looked good to him, so rather than
have any hard feelings about it I stuck closer than ever to the front of
the house.
"We had rented a frame building in a little town up on the Hudson and
were showing him off in good form. Business was rushing and we had the
S. R. O. sign out all the time, but snake food was getting scarcer than
boiled lobsters during the cold snap last winter. The show had closed up
for night and we were trying to make dents in the front of the tavern
bar with our breast bones and laying in a stock of supplies, in case old
Pete should bite us.
"While we were discussing the best way to stimulate the rabbit-breeding
industry, 'biff--boom--bang,' went the town bell and the barkeep
commenced to peel off his coat and get into a red flannel shirt and a
fireman's helmet. It was one of those towns where they have a dude
volunteer fire department, which the boys all join for the socials in
the winter and to look pretty on the annual parade day. Merritt and I
didn't hurry any; we knew that it would take some time for the chief,
who kept the town drug store, to get into his red shirt and shiny boots
and select the bouquet to carry in the big end of his speaking trumpet.
Pretty soon, 'Always Ready, Ever Faithful, Hose Company Number One,'
which comprised the department, came down the street, all of the company
shouting orders through trumpets at the two coons who were pulling the
cart.
"Of course, we went along to see the 'Fighting the Flames' show, but
say: the joke was on us, for it was our theater which provided it. There
wasn't anything left to burn and the hose company marched proudly back.
Poor old Pete was nothing but a heap of ashes and Merritt looked
sorrowful.
"'Jim,' says he, 'let's copper the rabbit market before they get wise.'"
"Did you have no insurance?" asked the Stranger sympathetically.
"Not a blame cent," replied his companion as he rose to go to bed. "But
I am making good money out of old Pete yet. I had him stuffed and get a
hundred a week from a dime museum for him--and they furnish the feed."
THE AMOROUS BABOON
THE AMOROUS BABOON
Thanks to the busy Press Agent, the fame of Jocko the Jealous, the
amorous baboon, had preceded him to America, and when the animals from
the Paris Hippodrome had been safely transferred to their dens in the
Arena at Dreamland he was the center of attraction as he limbered up his
muscles in the large monkey cage, after the cramped accommodations of
the small traveling box. He had gained a reputation as a masher in
Paris; but never had the menagerie attendants seen him so madly in love
and so insanely jealous as upon his first introduction to American
beauty, as exemplified by the fair woman who stood before his cage.
Jocko was not the first male being who had been fascinated by the charms
of the Prima Donna during her career; for she had been through the
marriage ceremony so often that she could say it backwards, never
forgetting to cross her fingers before saying, "Until death do us part."
The Proprietor drew the Stranger's attention to the group before the
cage, a mischievous smile on his face as he looked over the half dozen
of callow youths who are always in the train of the Prima Donna.
"Watch out for squalls over there," he said. "Jocko is affectionate now,
but there will be something doing in a few minutes." The monkey was
using all of the blandishments known to an amorous baboon and although
the words of his soft chattering were unintelligible, their import could
not be mistaken by a past mistress of the gentle art of love making; but
the Prima Donna could not be beguiled into placing herself within reach
of the hairy paws. Suddenly his mood changed, for one of her male
companions placed his hand on her arm to attract her attention and
Jocko, giving a howl of rage, danced madly up and down on all fours,
showing a vicious set of fangs as his lips curled back in a hideous
snarl. The bars of his cage were strong and so close together that he
could not get out to attack his rival; but he gathered up a mass of
litter from the floor and showered Prima Donna and callow youth alike.
His screams echoed through the Arena and caused even the majestic lions
and the haughty tigers to look in the direction of the cage of the
despised "Bandar Log," and made the smaller animals uneasy. The woman
who was described on the programme as "Miss ----, Famous Society Woman,"
had torn herself away from her arduous social duties with the Four
Hundred to exhibit a troupe of leopards to a Coney Island audience, her
identity concealed by a small black mask, and her performance in the big
cage was interrupted by the noise; so the Proprietor thought it time to
interfere.
[Illustration: _"He smoked his cigar in the lobby like any other
guest."_]
The Prima Donna laughed good-naturedly as he helped to brush the sawdust
and litter from her dress and tactfully drew her away, and Jocko quieted
down and implored her to return; but she was accustomed to gentler
wooing, and refused to put her dainty gown again in jeopardy.
"Jocko gave quite a performance to-night," said the Proprietor as he
joined the Press Agent and the Stranger at the table, after the show.
"That baboon is crazy about women; but he hasn't the discrimination of
Consul, the most intelligent monkey that ever lived. You may remember
that he was never quiet in his cage, but if a specially well-dressed
woman stopped in front of it he played entirely to her and when she
moved away his eyes followed her as long as she was in sight."
"There will never be another like Consul," said the Press Agent, shaking
his head sadly. "He made my job a sinecure, for he was good for a column
any day and a full page on Sundays."
"Never until the Missing Link is discovered," replied the Proprietor. "I
don't believe a more human monkey will ever be found, and I attribute
his wonderful intelligence to the fact that he associated entirely with
human beings, almost from the day of his birth. I got him from the
captain of a tramp steamer which traded to the West Coast, and I paid a
goodish bit of money for him too. I have never dared to tell his early
history as it was told to me, for fear I should be laughed at for a
liar; but stranger things happen in the animal business than ever get
into print, and if I dared risk my reputation by telling the things
which actually occur in a menagerie, I should never need a Press Agent;
but a plausible lie is accepted where a truth which sounds improbable is
turned down."
The Press Agent looked at him reproachfully, but agreed with the
proposition.
"Do you know, I have found that to be true when I have visited the
newspaper offices," he said. "I have actually had to embroider some of
the accounts of things which have happened here."
"I suspected it, for I didn't recognize some of the stories when I saw
them in print," answered the Proprietor, smiling at him approvingly. He
consented to tell the history of Consul, the famous chimpanzee, when
the Stranger expressed his entire credulity and the Press Agent assumed
an encouraging and sympathetic attitude.
[Illustration: _"Jocko, giving a howl of rage, danced madly up and
down."_]
"Of course, I have to take the ship captain's word for what happened
before I bought him, but from the way the chimp developed and the
intelligence he displayed after he came into my possession, I am
prepared to believe it. He told me that he got him from the natives at
the mouth of a small river on the West Coast, where he anchored his
steamer to trade. They came off about the ship in their canoes, but he
did not care for the rubber and ivory they had to offer and he was about
to hoist anchor when one of them, who was in a small canoe with a woman,
motioned to him to stop. The woman was crouched up in the stern, nursing
what the captain thought was a baby, but when the man dragged it away
from her, in spite of her voluble protest, he saw that it was a small
chimpanzee. The man seemed desperately anxious to trade--and I imagine
the captain's trade goods were not the sort to meet the entire approval
of the missionaries--so that a bargain was concluded and the woman's
grief allayed by a generous share of the purchase price. As nearly as he
could make out, she had found the little thing in the jungle when it was
only a few days old and had reared it in place of a baby which had just
died. She was a low type of woman, even for an African savage, but the
maternal instinct was strong enough to make her grieve for little
Consul, as the captain christened him. The monkey grieved over the
separation, too, but sailors make much of animals and he soon became
reconciled to it.
"Thousands of people saw him after I purchased him, and you can judge of
the reputation he attained when I tell you that I was getting fifteen
hundred dollars a week for him in Berlin when he died, and he was booked
for the entire season at that price. People had seen him eat with a
knife and fork, smoke a cigar, use a typewriter and do all of the stunts
which simply aped humanity, but you had to live with the little beast to
appreciate how intensely human he was. Everybody connected with the show
loved him, and when I wanted to find any one of the employees who was
off duty, or not in his proper place, I always went first to Consul's
cage and I was pretty sure to locate him. That monkey was never still,
and the things he would do and the pranks he would play off his own bat
were more amusing than any of the things he had been taught.
"When he was in company he was as well mannered as most men, but, of
course, he had his prejudices and had to be watched. His special
aversion was a negro, which is strange when you consider his early
associations, and if one came around when he was loose he was apt to
attack him. We had to consider that in traveling, for Consul always
stopped at the hotels with his trainer and sat about the lobbies,
smoking his cigar like any other guest, but if there were negro servants
about, we had to be very careful not to let them come near him.
"He had the reasoning power of a child of ten years old; he was patient
when anything was wrong and we had to do disagreeable things to him,
appreciating that it was for his benefit. Only once did we have to use
force, when it was necessary to pull a tooth, and I am glad it wasn't
oftener, for it took seven men to control him and they thought they had
done a day's work when we finished. The last time he went abroad he was
the life of the ship, but he pretty nearly killed himself. The doctor
prescribed a cough medicine for him and Consul liked it so well that he
got up in the night, after his trainer had gone to sleep, opened the
valise in which it was kept and emptied the bottle. I guess there must
have been laudanum in it, for they had to work over him the rest of the
night to save him.
[Illustration: _"All of his savage instincts were aroused."_]
"He would walk the deck with the lady passengers, who made a great deal
of him, and when the customary concert was given, nothing would do but
that he must perform and then pass the plate for the collection. He was
in evening dress and behaved like a perfect gentleman, and the
collection was a large one. It was heaped on the plate, and he was just
about to present it to the captain when Booker Washington stepped
forward to make a contribution. The money for the Seaman's Home went
flying to the four corners of the salon and the trainer had a difficult
time in persuading Consul to retire without tearing the clothes off of
the man whose only offense was his color. This was Consul's last voyage,
for he contracted pleurisy and died in Berlin, and I felt worse over his
death than I did over the burning of my whole menagerie in Baltimore a
few years ago."
"Have you found that early association with human beings makes the other
animals easier to train?" asked the Stranger, and the Proprietor shook
his head.
"No; I would rather train one taken in the jungle than an animal born in
captivity. They do raise the pumas in South America and have them about
the houses as we do cats; but I wouldn't trust one of 'em. And as for
the bigger cats, the lions and tigers, there is no such thing as taming
them. They may be trained to do certain things, but they are never
trustworthy. We had a queer illustration of that when I was traveling
with a caravan circus in France. One of the lionesses had a litter of
three cubs, and in the excitement of the moving and strange
surroundings, she killed two of them. We took the other one away and the
woman who cooked for us volunteered to raise it. She became very much
attached to it and developed the theory that she could overcome its
savage instincts by diet, and for a time it looked as if she were right.
The beast was with her for about two years and grew to a fine animal,
but she never let him taste raw food. One day, when he was comfortably
lying before the stove, she pushed him with her foot to get him out of
the way and he resented it. Whether it was that alone, or whether the
odor of meat which she was about to cook appealed to him, I don't know;
but all of his savage instincts were aroused and when we secured him we
found that he had taken most of her scalp off."
"It's funny how some people are always looking for a chance to get
damages," said the Press Agent, settling himself comfortably in his
chair. "We had a case of it when Merritt and I were running a dime
museum out West. The freaks all lived together at a large boarding house
and one morning, when they reported for duty, the 'Tattooed Lady' was
missing. It was before the days when they were so common and we had
spent a lot of money to have her decorated and made her our star
attraction. Of course, none of the tattooing was visible when she was in
street costume, but when she sat on the platform dressed in low neck and
short skirts the lecturer had something to talk about, for the menagerie
pictured on her was a thing of beauty, and the few choice texts like,
'Be good and you will be happy,' which were scattered in between the
animals, were highly moral and elevating, and that was one of the strong
points of our show. Merritt used to spread himself when he was telling
how she was shipwrecked on a desert island and held captive by the cruel
cannibals, whose high priests spared her from the menu to tattoo her
with the symbols of their heathenish worship. It gave him a great chance
to come in strong on the moral part, when he explained about the texts
and told how they were added after the cannibals had been converted to
red flannel shirts, silk hats and a vegetable diet, by the missionaries,
and I have seen ancient maiden ladies moved to tears by his recital. So
when he had to give his lecture without her, he got mixed up and called
attention to the marvelous growth of hair on the face of the 'Circassian
Beauty,' thinking she was the 'Bearded Lady,' and nearly pulled the ears
off of the 'Dog Faced Boy,' trying to explain that he was 'The Man With
The Rubber Skin.' Of course, that made trouble among the freaks, who are
a mighty touchy lot anyway, and I have noticed that trouble always comes
in bunches in the show business, so I wasn't surprised when a husky guy
that looked like a farmer came in with blood in his eye and asked for
the manager. I looked around for Merritt, but he had gone around the
corner to get something to drown his sorrow, so I slipped a piece of
lead pipe under my coat and acknowledged the soft impeachment.
[Illustration: _"A 'Tattooed Lady,' and she's all covered with
picters."_]
"'Look'ee here, wot kinder a skin game be youse fellers runnin' here?'
says the guy, and I took a good grip on the lead pipe and tried to turn
away wrath by a soft answer, and quoting from our advertisement that it
was a highly moral and intellectual entertainment.
"'Not by a dern sight, it ain't,' says he. 'It's a blasted man-trap to
ketch the unwary, an' I'll have the law on ye an' make yer pay fer
trifling with my young affections.' I have had some pretty tough things
said to me in my day, but that was about the worst ever, and pretty
nearly took my breath away, but he went right on.
"'I deliver milk to that boardin' house down the street an' I see a
likely lookin' gal there lately an' I wanted some one to help milk an'
look after the house, so I asks her to marry me. She says she will, so
we hitched up an' I never knew she was one o' yer dern freaks until it
was too late. She says she's a "Tattooed Lady," an' she's all covered
with picters.'
"'Well, what's the matter with 'em?' says I. 'Aren't they good
pictures?'
"'Good enough,' says he, 'for them as likes 'em; but I don't hanker
after no decorations o' that kind an', b'gosh, I'll make yer pay fer
palmin' off a damaged article on me. She's all over snakes an' other
beasts an' it makes me sick ter my stummick every time I thinks of 'em.'
I tried to convince him that we were not responsible and that it was his
wife's duty to have informed him.
"'That's what I told her, dod gast her! But she says it's my own fault
if I didn't know she was a "Tattooed Lady," because I never asked her,
an' blamed if she isn't proud o' them picters, too.'"
"How did you settle it--did he get damages?" asked the Stranger.
"Damages!" exclaimed the Press Agent as he wiped the foam from his
moustache. "Why, Merritt came in, and when he heard the guy's kick he
lit right into him.
"'Blame your skin!' he yelled. 'I've a good mind to have you arrested
for stealing the pictures from my art gallery. I have a claim on 'em,
for I paid for the liquor to keep a sailor drunk for six weeks while he
was doing that job.' The Rube got onto the fact that she was valuable,
so they adjourned to a saloon to talk it over."
"With what result?" asked the Proprietor, as he rose from the table.
"Well, Merritt got her back on the platform, the Rube sold his farm, and
within six weeks he was wearing more yellow diamonds and throwing a
bigger chest than the husband of a grand opera prima donna."
FEEDING THE SERPENTS AND A GRAND TRANSFORMATION
FEEDING THE SERPENTS AND A GRAND TRANSFORMATION
The animals had received their evening meal when the Proprietor came
from the Arena and joined the Stranger and the Press Agent at the table
outside.
"I can never understand the interest people take in seeing the
carnivorous animals fed; it is no more than giving a bone to a dog," he
said, as he took his seat. "And yet it is one of the best drawing
features of the show, and the same people remain night after night to
see the meat poked into the cages. If it were not for the prohibition of
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals I could give a
feeding exhibition which would be novel and interesting, for
comparatively few people have ever seen a snake eat.