Proprietor. "I am counting upon it for my opening sensation at the Paris
Hippodrome next winter, and I don't intend to discount it before a Coney
Island audience. But to get back to my experience with her on the
steamer. I found that she occupied the most expensive deck stateroom,
and had a maid and a man servant traveling with her; so that I refused
all of her renewed offers for the bear when I found the powerful
fascination it had for her, and I finally consented to let her try the
experiment of working with a group of animals. You know the class from
which trainers are usually recruited, and you can imagine the interest
I take in a woman who possesses an absolute fearlessness which is
inherited from generations of ancestors who have never shown the white
feather, in addition to education and intelligence. The only thing which
puzzled me was her motive, and that I have not discovered yet, although
the ambassador, who had received all sorts of communications about her
from his own government, told me her history. It seems that she has
always been noted for her eccentricity and her rebellion against the
strict laws of convention which were supposed to control her life, and
this is not the first time she has defied them. She had commissioned the
artist--who, by the way, is one of the most celebrated men in Paris--to
paint a portrait of her. At the same time he was painting an exhibition
picture to be called the 'Dancing Bear,' and had purchased Mephisto for
a model. The picture was to represent the bear dancing on its hind legs
opposite a woman, to the music of a flageolet played by a man bear
leader--such an exhibition as is commonly given at the country fairs
throughout Europe. He had no difficulty in getting a male model, but he
was in despair about the woman dancer. He tried model after model, and
although they started in all right each one became so nervous after a
sitting or two that they refused to continue. The bear was chained to
the wall and they were posed safely out of reach, but each of them
asserted that the animal was like a serpent and trying to charm them so
that they would come close enough to be caught. They were all afraid
that they might yield to the fascination and be seriously injured.
Tramp, the cat, would probably have told the same story if he had been
able to talk.
"As a matter of curiosity the artist experimented with men, but the bear
appeared indifferent to them and the men made no complaint. It only
seemed to exercise this strange hypnotic power over women--and cats--for
the artist found two Persian felines, which had been studio pets, dead
beside it; simply crushed, as were those which were killed by the bear
at the Hippodrome. He mentioned the matter during one of the sittings
for the portrait, and the lady, being curious to see the animal, came to
his studio--and then the trouble commenced. She developed a most
unaccountable attachment for Mephisto, and he was as gentle as a lamb
with her. They would sit facing each other by the hour, and the artist
swore they talked to each other and understood each other perfectly. The
animal never attempted to harm her, but the artist became alarmed for
fear there should be an accident, and believing that there was something
uncanny about the brute, he decided to get rid of it and sold it to me.
"Well, I watched her with the bear on shipboard and since we landed, and
I can't yet understand her control over it, for it does not control her
in any way. There seems to be a sympathy between them which makes them
absolutely understand each other, and through it she understands the
other caged beasts. The act which I had framed for her when I found that
she was absolutely in earnest was a dance to be given in the midst of a
group of adult lions. The lady is absolutely fearless and approved the
plan, but stipulated that she should select the lions.
"'I have means of knowing which ones will behave and which are such
idiots that they can't be controlled if anything goes wrong,' she
answered when I suggested that I was a better judge of the dispositions
of the lions. 'I don't intend to have my beauty spoiled,' she said, 'and
I only want beasts which are intelligent. No one can trust a fool.'
Perhaps I have fallen under her influence, which according to her
standard should indicate intelligence, for I have given way at every
point and her judgment has proved correct, for in rehearsing the act she
has perfect control over the animals, three of which I considered the
most vicious in the menagerie. I let her take them in fear and
trembling.
"For the past three days she has been anxious and uneasy about the bear
and has insisted that it was rapidly going blind. She says that the bear
is her teacher about things in the animal world, and that she can tell
what it is thinking about. Its eyes look perfectly sound, and it is only
for two days that we have noticed anything wrong with it. Mephisto knew
its way about its old cage so well that it gave no evidence of
blindness, and a bear is naturally clumsy in its movements, but when we
moved it to a strange den it stumbled over everything. I experimented by
bringing Tramp in front of its cage, but with the loss of sight the
hypnotic power has apparently deserted it, and the cat paid no attention
to it. Finally I called in the doctor and you heard him pronounce his
verdict."
"But where is the great loss?" asked the Stranger.
"It is principally a loss in prospective profits," replied the
Proprietor as he beckoned to the waiter. "I had the new act all planned
out for Paris--the lady was to appear masked for her performance, but I
knew her identity would be discovered and that it would be a tremendous
sensation. I don't know how much of her desire to train animals is due
to eccentricity and as a protest against the conventions which hedged
in her former life, and how much to her strange infatuation for
Mephisto, but since its blindness has developed she has lost interest
and I suppose she will renege on the whole business."
"How do you account for it all--her infatuation for the bear and her
intuitive knowledge of the dispositions of the lions?" asked the
Stranger.
"I don't try to account for anything. It is one of the thousand things
about animals and the million things about women which no mere man can
understand," replied the Proprietor laughing. "I have simply given you
the facts of the situation and you can draw your own conclusions, but
the bear's blindness upsets my plans and possibly prevents a sensation
in circles which approach royalty."
"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-class 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 bum, but what it lacked in
quality it made up in quantity 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 Circassian 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 Circassian 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 assortment: 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 Circassian
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.
[Illustration: _"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 Circassian, 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 passed on to
the Circassian, 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 scrapper and she mixed in with a miscellaneous assortment
of stuffed animals and preserved specimens, to say nothing of some
choice language which she hadn't learned in Circassia. 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 Circassian Beaut','
answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts bum 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 Circassian'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 finishing 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.
[Illustration: _"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 lashing 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
pronged 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 pass 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.
[Illustration: _"Depew was still crouched on the body of his victim."_]
Every keeper connected with the show stood about the cage with the Roman
candles, fire extinguishers, pistols and irons which are always kept in
readiness, and any or all of them would have willingly entered to rescue
the man, but experience has taught them that two cannot work together
in a cage with animals. They were quick to act and a stream of water
under heavy pressure from the fire hose struck the tiger in the side,
exploding fireworks scorched his skin, the din of revolver shots was in
his ears, while the wads from the cartridges stung him, but he seemed
conscious only of the prostrate form beneath him. At last his chance had
come; the trainer who for long months had made him do foolish things
which were beneath the dignity of a royal tiger was in his power; the
revolver which had so often checked him was emptied; the cruel training
rod was powerless, for the hand which held it was pinned to the floor by
a huge paw. Cat-like he paused to glory in his triumph, loath to give
the _coup de grace_ which would put his victim beyond the reach of
suffering, and he stood there growling, the bloody slaver from his jaws
dripping on the upturned face of the prostrate man.
Animal trainers need to think quickly and to seize the slightest moment
of hesitation or indecision on the part of their pupils if they wish to
be long-lived, and Miller, as he fell, had thrown his useless pistol out
of the cage and uttered the one word "Load!" There was no time for that,
but Tudor, seeing that the trainer had one arm free, threw his own
pistol through the bars and it slid across the floor of the cage
straight as a die to the outstretched hand. It was a time when fractions
of a second count and Depew's hesitation robbed him of his revenge. The
opened jaws were within a foot of the trainer's throat when the muzzle
of the pistol went between them, and Depew, coughing and choking, drew
back, his throat scorched by the burning powder, his eyes momentarily
blinded by the stream from a fire extinguisher, while Miller struggled
to his feet.
"People who see the crowds at my show think that I must coin money,"
said the Proprietor as he joined the Press Agent and the Stranger after
the performance. "But that accident in the Arena to-night means a loss
of fifty thousand dollars to me."
"Isn't that a high figure, even if they all die?" asked the Stranger,
who had been doing a little mental arithmetic.
"For those eight, yes, although a trained tiger is worth all sorts of
money, but I have purchased twenty-eight in all for that group, and the
others have been killed one by one, fighting among themselves. They
average over a thousand apiece, for I bought only the best, and figure
up the cost of their keep, transportation and trainer's salaries for
three years and you will find that I am not far out. That is the
difficulty of the show business in America, the public demands so much.
It is a marvelous thing, when you come to think of it, to see one
educated tiger; but if he wore evening clothes and played the fiddle it
wouldn't impress the Americans; they would demand a full orchestra. I
can give an act an hour long in Paris with one high school horse, but
here they want fifty liberty horses in a bunch and only care to watch
them for ten minutes. I realized that from Bonavita's act with the
lions; no individual lion did very much, but the fact that there were
twenty-seven of them in the cage drew the crowds. That's what made me
start in with the tigers, and I intended to get a big group, but now I
am back where I started from. I don't believe a troupe of tigers can
ever be trained."
[Illustration: _"Depew, coughing and choking, drew back."_]
"Hagenbeck has them," ventured the Stranger. "They seem as tame as
kittens with his show."
"That's just the point," answered the Proprietor. "They are as tame as
kittens: undersized brutes which have been raised in captivity and
which go through their act like domestic cats. That isn't what the
public wants. A sensation--the realization that every animal in the cage
is a wild animal and that he is liable to remember it at any minute--is
what holds attention. That is why I always use jungle animals when I can
get them, for, although they can be as well trained, they always perform
under protest and it makes it exciting. But the losses from fighting
among themselves make it mighty expensive to keep up the big groups
which the American public demands."
"That's one of the things which drove me out of the show business," said
the Press Agent as he set his empty glass on the table and signaled to
the waiter. "A guy named Merritt and myself had a snake show in New York
a few years ago which presented the most complete collection of reptiles
ever gotten together, for it contained specimens of every species of
wriggler known to herpetology and a good many that were not described in
the books. That man Merritt was an inventive genius and had the
California sharp, Burbank, beaten a mile when it came to inventing new
species. When business was dull he'd take a lot of common, ordinary
snakes into the back room and with a bottle of peroxide of hydrogen and
an assortment of aniline dyes he would bring out albinos and spotted and
striped snakes which made the scientists open their eyes and kept 'em
busy inventing new Latin names.
"His biggest success was 'The Great Two-horned Rhinoceros Serpent,'
which made 'em all sit up for a month, and if I hadn't seen Merritt
working over a common boa-constrictor with a pair of shark's teeth and a
dish of bird lime it would have fooled me. That snake was proud of the
horns which Merritt glued on his head, too, and he used to chase the
other snakes around the cage and butt 'em like a giddy billy-goat. But
in spite of all his ingenuity in originating new varieties, business was
dropping off, for the public demanded quantity as well as quality and we
had skinned the local snake market clean. We were sitting in the office
one day, figuring on where we could get additions to our collection,
when a stout, red-faced little man who had 'sea captain' written all
over him came in and asked if we wanted any more snakes. Merritt allowed
that we did if the snakes and the prices were right and asked where we
could inspect them.
"'Well, I've got one that I brought from Borneo and he's on a ship down
in the harbor,' says the Captain. 'We won't argue none about the price,
for if you'll come down and take him away you can have him for nothing.'
That made Merritt a little suspicious and he asked the Captain if it
were his ship.
"'I reckoned it was until two days ago, when that blame snake broke
loose,' he answered irritably. 'Since then he seems to own it and not a
man jack of the crew will go below. I've tried to shoot him, but the
beggar's too quick, and I want to discharge my cargo, so if you ain't
afraid to tackle him, come on.'
"'Me afraid! Me?' says Merritt throwing out a chest. 'Why, man alive,
I'm the only living snake charmer who ever dared handle the dangerous
Two-horned Rhinoceros Serpent, and do you think I'd weaken before a
common Borneo python?'
"'I dunno whether you will or not until I see you try,' says the
Captain. 'I've handled a Malay crew, which is worse than serpents, and
I've mixed it up with most of the scum that sails the seven seas, but
this blame snake's got me bluffed all right. He's three fathom long, as
big around as the mainmast, and made up principally of muscle and
wickedness.'
"'Just watch me. Watch me!' says Merritt. 'I'll use my wonderful
hypnotic power and you'll see the serpent crawl into the bag at my
command, to be easily transported to this moral and elevating show for
exhibition as an example of the power of mind over matter.'