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 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 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.
[Illustration: _"Sam Watson confessed the whole thing."_]
"You wouldn't believe that I spent over seven hundred dollars to turn
that smallest elephant white a few years ago," said the Colonel as the
waiter refilled their glasses, but his companions made unanimous
protestation that they would believe any statement he made, and the
Colonel settled back comfortably in his chair to tell the story which
they demanded.
"You will have to listen to the story of the famous war of the white
elephants, then," he said, good-naturedly, "a struggle which will remain
famous in the circus world as long as the big tops are spread. It was in
the good old days of fierce competition in the business, the days when
the press agents earned every dollar of their salaries, and sometimes
had to go to the extent of saying things in print which were not
strictly true. There was intense rivalry between the two big shows, the
P. T. Barnum and the Forepaugh aggregations, and the bitter feeling
between the proprietors was transmitted to the employees. The advance
agents would steal each other's printed matter and posters out of the
express offices, and you could always count on a fight between the
canvas men whenever the two shows were close enough together. They
would damage each other's property, loosen nuts on the wagons so that
the wheels would come off and cause upsets, and do anything to embarrass
the rival show.
"Each show tried to outdo the other at every point; advertising, number
of performers, length of the street parade, menagerie collection and
everything which money could buy. They started in to see which could get
the largest herd of elephants, each advertising the largest herd in
captivity, and that competition raised the price of elephants all over
the world and denuded every small zoological park in Europe, while it
pretty nearly bankrupted the shows to feed them. We had eighty with the
Barnum circus, and finally Mr. Barnum came to me and said that he had
purchased a Sacred White Elephant and told me to start giving it
publicity. Of course, I didn't know anything about that particular kind
of elephant, but as I always like to be perfectly accurate in my
statements I made a scientific study of it. I found that, as a matter
of fact, there was no such thing as a white elephant known in natural
history, although there was an occasional absence of the usual pigment
in the skins of some beasts which give them a trifle lighter color, and
that these animals were apt to have a few spots on the body which were
nearly white, just as you sometimes hear of a negro who is spotted. When
such a spot occurs in the center of the forehead the Buddhists regard
the beast as sacred, from the fact that the god, Buddha, is always
depicted as wearing a jewel in that position and it is looked upon as
his special mark of protection. It is the ambition of every Indian Rajah
to possess one, for then he is billed as 'The Lord of the Sacred White
Elephant,' a title which seems to fill a long-felt want in the heart of
an Oriental potentate.
"Well, Barnum's agent had, by some hook or crook, procured one of these
and sent it to London, but owing to the lateness of the season it was
decided to leave it there in the Zoological Gardens and get up a
controversy which, in itself, would be a good advertisement for it. The
average Englishman is very fond of writing to the _Times_ to expose a
fraud, and we knew that there would be a protest from those who would be
disappointed in the brute's color. There are hundreds of retired
officers who have served in India living in London, and they know all
about Sacred White Elephants, and time hangs heavily on their hands.
They were only too anxious to certify to its genuineness, and they wrote
the peppery kind of replies to the criticisms which might be expected
from men who had spent the best years of their lives under a hot sun and
lived upon curries and red peppers. Of course, I saw that the letters
were copied in the home papers, and before the circus season opened I
had the Great American Public watching anxiously for the reported
sailing of the Sacred White Elephant.
[Illustration: _"Walking upon its hind legs, BACKWARD."_]
"I should have been on my guard, for the Forepaugh bunch just kept
sawing wood and saying nothing, but whenever I met their press agent he
gave me the quiet laugh. Our elephant was finally shipped, and you can
imagine that I made the most of it in the papers. I had 'em filled up
for two days, and then, while ours was still in mid-ocean, out comes
Forepaugh's announcement that his Sacred White Elephant would land in
New York the following day. I knew it was a fake, for they were very
difficult to obtain, but they stole our thunder, just the same. I
managed to get a peep at it while it was being unloaded, and although it
was only a dirty yellowish color, I knew that it would make ours look
like a decided brunette by comparison. They had worked it well and kept
it quiet, but knowing that there was a nigger in the woodpile and that
money would bring him out, I spent it like a drunken sailor in trying to
get information.
"Forepaugh had eminent scientists examine the beast and give their
certificates that it was genuine, and all the inside information I could
get was that the elephant had been purchased through Cross, the great
animal dealer in Liverpool, and that it had been kept secluded in his
place there all winter. Sam Watson, who was Forepaugh's foreign agent,
and his groom, a man named Telford, were the only people who had access
to it, and they had spent hours every day in its stall. Cross would give
us no information as to how or where he obtained the elephant, for
Forepaugh bought all of the animals for his menagerie through him,
while we dealt with his great rival, Hagenbeck, of Hamburg.
"Forepaugh got all the newspaper space for the next few days, and when
our elephant finally arrived it looked mighty dark-colored for a white
elephant when compared with the fake one. It was hard to educate the
people up to the significance of the little white spot in the center of
the forehead, but any one but a blind man could see that Forepaugh's
fake was lighter in color. We went at it, horse, foot and artillery, and
the fight cost the two shows more than a quarter of a million dollars,
and lasted until we patched up a truce in St. Louis to save us both
going into bankruptcy. I got some of Cross's employees to swear that
they had seen the elephant being painted in Liverpool, and Forepaugh
replied by getting a commission of scientific sharps from Ann Arbor to
examine the beast and swear that the color was natural. There was good
money in perjury and scientific opinions those days, but I never let up
for a minute in my endeavor to get at the truth of the matter, for I
knew it was hanky panky and I am a diligent searcher after truth,
especially when a rival has sunk it to the bottom of a well. I
experimented with some of our elephants until I nearly took their thick
hides off, but I could get no satisfactory results until I called in
Marchand, the chemist, and asked him if he could give me something to
bleach an elephant. He had an especially strong solution of peroxide of
hydrogen made up, and I selected the smallest animal out of our herd of
eighty to try it on. It happened to be the one which you just saw
working on the ballyhoo over there, which you noticed was the ordinary
slate color. We soaked cloths in the peroxide and covered the beast with
them and then put blankets on top. After they had been on for awhile we
washed the animal with ammonia and water and repeated the performance
until that elephant was as white as snow.
[Illustration: _"Forepaugh had eminent scientists examine the beast."_]
"Forepaugh was to open in Philadelphia, so I shipped our fake over
there, and when they had their street parade I followed right behind it
with our bleached animal on a truck which was liberally placarded. The
notices called attention to the fact that Forepaugh's alleged sacred
elephant was simply painted and that the men who did it were bunglers at
the business. 'LOOK AT THIS ONE!' read our largest placard. 'WE TELL
YOU THAT IT IS A FAKE! So is Forepaugh's, but he won't tell! This is A
BETTER JOB BY A BETTER ARTIST!' That made the Forepaugh people hot, and
they replied with a new bunch of affidavits and expert opinions from a
lot of University of Pennsylvania professors. That couldn't offset our
show-up, though, and the whole situation had become so mixed that the
public thought all of the elephants were fakes. We had the only genuine
one and the best fake also, but they were a pair of white elephants in
every sense of the term, and a losing proposition. The one which we had
bleached would only keep white for about two weeks, and as each
treatment cost seven hundred dollars Barnum called me off. The Forepaugh
bunch was trying to poison it, and as the whole thing was dead as a
money-making venture and white elephants a drug in the market, we let
this one regain its natural color. When the great herd was broken up it
was sold off, and I never saw it again until to-night."
"But what was the inside history of the Forepaugh white elephant?" asked
one of his companions, and the Colonel smiled as he lighted a fresh
cigar.
"I never knew it until this year, when one night over a friendly drink
Sam Watson, who is now a clown with the Big Show, confessed the whole
thing. Forepaugh is dead and the shows have been consolidated, so there
is no further object in keeping the thing quiet. It seems that
Forepaugh's agents found out that Barnum had purchased the elephant from
an impecunious Indian Rajah; in fact, he had purchased two, the first
one having died on its way to England. It was the misdirection of a
cable announcing the death and ordering another at any cost which put
them wise to the fact that Barnum had a rarity. Watson had never heard
of a sacred elephant, but he started out to get one when he read that
cablegram. They were scarce articles, and Barnum had bought the only two
which were to be had for love or money in all India, so he and Cross got
their heads together and started out to manufacture a bogus one in
Liverpool.
"They prepared a closed stall, which was always kept locked, and put an
elephant in it--just a common, or garden, elephant. Then Sam and his
groom, Telford, proceeded to get busy with bath bricks, pumice stone
and a barrel of white aniline dye. I imagine they had a pretty hard
winter's work and it was certainly a tough period for the elephant,
because they had to scrape about half the skin off the poor brute before
the dye would take hold. They finally succeeded in getting him several
shades lighter than normal, all except about eighteen inches at the end
of the trunk. They could do nothing with that on account of the habit of
the beast, which was always mussing around in its bedding, searching for
stray peanuts.
[Illustration: _"Then Sam and his groom, Telford, proceeded to get
busy."_]
"They kept in touch with the London Zoo and found out when we were to
ship the genuine one, and then got their fake on a steamer which would
land it in New York a few days ahead of us. Of course, they had to keep
working at it all the way over, but they kept it quiet and no one caught
on. When the scientific sharps came to examine it, Sam would hoist the
trunk up in the air while he drew their attention to the marvelous
whiteness of the under side, and no one caught on to the fact that the
end of the trunk was the natural color.
"He let them remove some bits of skin for microscopic examination to
prove that no dye was used, but he always had them taken from the inner
side of the foreleg near the body, from which the natural pigment is
absent in all elephants. Sam swears that they never had to fix one of
the experts; they were only too anxious to get the advertisement, and
they were prepared to swear, and did in this particular case, that black
was white.
"I have a few gray hairs in my head, and most of them came during the
strain of that fight. The game isn't what it used to be and I'm glad
that it isn't, and let me tell you, as a result of long experience, that
the worst thing which can happen to a man is to have a white elephant,
fake or genuine, on his hands."
THE HYPNOTIC BEAR AND THE SENTIMENTAL LECTURER
THE HYPNOTIC BEAR AND THE SENTIMENTAL LECTURER
The doctor shook his head as he slipped his ophthalmoscope into his
pocket, and Rey, the trainer, who had been holding the bear's head still
while the oculist made the examination, opened the door of the cage for
him. The bear--a medium-sized black animal--wandered aimlessly about,
stumbling over the water pan and knocking its head against the bars, its
eyes, which were evidently sightless, shining like two fiery opals as
they reflected the electric light.
"I am sorry to tell you that it is a hopeless case," said the physician
to the Proprietor, who was standing with the Stranger in front of the
cage watching the examination. "Both optic nerves are atrophied, and
the animal must have received some serious injury, possibly a heavy
blow on the forehead." The Proprietor, who has the reputation of being a
"good loser," thanked him and gave some directions to the trainer about
the care of the animal before leading the way to the table in front of
the Arena, where the Press Agent was waiting for them.
"It is rather unusual to call the most famous specialist in the country
to examine a menagerie animal," he said, after the doctor hurriedly left
them to catch the express train back to the city. "You know that he
takes no small fee; his services are either given for charity or his
charge is very high--and this visit was not for charity."
"I should think that the value of a bear would hardly warrant the
expense," answered the Stranger as the waiter filled the glasses.
"It wouldn't be for an ordinary bear, but I was willing to pay anything
in reason to restore the sight of this particular specimen, so I sent
for the best-known oculist in New York. The decision which he has just
given will probably mean a loss of thousands of dollars to me, but that
is one of the risks which I have to assume. Would it interest you to
hear a rather unusual romance of the menagerie business?" The Stranger
gave eager assent, and the Press Agent settled himself comfortably and
lighted a cigar.
[Illustration: _"There seems to be a sympathy between them."_]
"You have no idea how many animals are offered to the owner of a
menagerie and from what unusual sources the offers come," said the
Proprietor. "Travelers in far countries bring back strange animals as
pets or curiosities; people buy young wild animals which get beyond
control when they mature and become veritable white elephants on their
hands, and their owners have to dispose of them. I have had everything
from monkeys to lions brought to me, and so it did not surprise me when
an artist came to the Hippodrome in Paris last winter and asked me if I
didn't want to purchase a bear. He seemed anxious for me to see it
immediately, and at his earnest solicitation I got in a cab with him and
drove to his studio, which was situated on the far side of the Seine.
The bear which you saw examined to-night was in a small room adjoining
the studio, chained to a ring in the wall.
"The apartment was luxuriously furnished, and I realized that it was not
lack of ready money which made the artist so anxious to dispose of the
brute; but he seemed in a desperate hurry to have me take it away, and
offered it for such a low price that I closed the bargain at once. I
suggested sending one of my men for it in the evening, but he insisted
upon my taking it with me, and as the bear was evidently as gentle as a
kitten I called a closed cab and drove away with it. The bear sat
comfortably on the seat beside me and gave no trouble, but as we drove
along I got to thinking the matter over and the whole proceeding seemed
a little strange. I had Mephisto, as the bear was named, put in a cage
well away from the other animals--a sort of quarantine precaution which
I always take with new arrivals--and as there was apparently nothing
unusual about him gave him little attention, there being for the moment
no group of animals in training for which he would be available. I soon
noticed that during the intermissions, when the audience wandered about
and examined the animals in the cages, there was always a crowd of women
about his den; but I thought that it was because he was such an
inveterate beggar, and had a habit of standing at the bars with his
mouth wide open, waiting for some one to flick a lump of sugar into it.
"The bear had given us no trouble, and there was only one peculiar thing
about him: he seemed to have an aversion to cats. The bodies of three of
them had been found in front of his cage, although we had never seen one
killed. The cats about a menagerie instinctively keep out of harm's way,
and it puzzled me to know how Mephisto had managed to get them within
reach of his heavy paw. Jack Bonavita, who fusses about his lions at all
hours of the day and night, solved that mystery and incidentally saved
his pet cat, Tramp, from an untimely ending. Tramp has been with Jack
for years and appreciates the folly of venturing within reach of the
animals in the cages, but Bonavita came across him in front of
Mephisto's cage in the middle of the night. The bear was absolutely
quiet, lying with its head on its paws and its eyes, which glistened
like two points of flame, fixed on the cat. Tramp was staring at it in
turn and slowly drawing nearer to the cage, apparently struggling
against some influence which was stronger than its will. Bonavita
watched them for a few minutes, but before the cat ventured within
striking distance he picked it up and carried it away, while Mephisto,
growling with rage, tried to break through the stout bars and get at it.
[Illustration: _"Tramp was slowly drawing nearer to the cage."_]
"Two days before we were to sail for America I was sitting at my desk
arranging some of the last details of shipment, when the door burst open
and a well-dressed, handsome woman rushed in, followed by the artist who
had sold me the bear. She was in a tearing rage and jabbering excitedly
in a language which I did not understand, while the artist was trying to
quiet her. She pushed him aside, and opening a purse which was well
stuffed with banknotes, she asked in French, which she spoke with a
marked foreign accent, for how much I would sell Mephisto. The artist
protested, but she turned on him and gave him a tongue lashing of which
I could guess the meaning, although the words were unintelligible to me.
I couldn't quite grasp the situation, but the strange hypnotic power
which the bear apparently exercised over cats had excited my curiosity,
and I wished to investigate it at my leisure, so I politely but
positively refused to name a price, and told her the animal was not for
sale. The artist seemed relieved and she was very much disappointed, but
she quieted down and asked me what I intended to do with the animal. I
told her that I was taking it to America, where it would be put in a
mixed group which Rey was to train, and after inquiring when we were to
sail, they left the office.
"I regretted that I had not taken the opportunity to find out something
about the history of the animal, and looked over the audience to try to
locate the couple, but they had left the building. One of the keepers
told me that she had screamed when she recognized the bear and called it
by name. She was trying to bribe him to let her go into the cage when
the artist came up and expostulated with her, and they had an awful row
before coming to my office. I heard nothing more from them and we
shipped the animals at Havre the following day. The traveling dens were
placed in the 'tween decks, which is not a pleasant place to be when the
ship is tossing about, and I was surprised the second day out to find
the woman who had tried to purchase Mephisto standing in front of his
cage in that smelly place, talking to the bear as if it were a child.
She laughed when I came up to her, and told me that as I would not part
with the bear I would have to take her with the show. I, too, laughed,
for I have a large family of daughters, and I knew that the simple
traveling gown which she wore had cost more than two months' salary of
my best trainer, but to my great surprise she was in dead earnest, and
asked me seriously if I would not let her train a group of animals."
The Press Agent grew very attentive, but the Proprietor told him that he
was not talking for publication, and that a name which occupied several
pages of the Almanach de Gotha was sacred, even from an American
promoter of publicity.
"And she does carry that name and was born to it," he continued, "but I
can't tell you what it is. She didn't tell it to me and it was not on
the passenger list, but the ambassador from a great European nation came
on from Washington to see her and remonstrate with her and to influence
me to exclude her from the show. I wouldn't consent to that, but I am
afraid that the accident of the bear's going blind will be the cause of
my losing an act which promised to be sensational."
[Illustration: _"The bear sat comfortably on the seat beside me."_]
"You have kept it quiet enough," said the Press Agent with a trace of
resentment in his voice. "It sounds to me as if it ought to be good for
a front-page column in every New York paper."