“Shine” was a Bowery fighter. He turned in Simpson’s clutch and threw
him, and while the “boosters” were forcing their way to the platform
to aid their employer, he pounded Simpson in a fury. It was impossible
to separate him from his struggling victim, so they dragged him from
the platform, and Simpson with him; and then some of the roughs in the
crowd raised a cry of “Fair fight there! Fair fight!” and attacked the
boosters. In the midst of it a gang of Coney thieves made a raid on
the ticket office, and Mrs. Simpson’s wild yells rose above the tumult
in a shrill appeal for help.
There followed a free fight and a general scramble for the gate
receipts.
It lasted until the policeman on that beat called out the reserves to
clear the street; and when these turned their attention to the cause of
the disorder, a solitary gasoline torch, above the ballyhoo platform,
shone on the deserted wreck of the “Alhambra” front. The boosters had
made their escape by the back way. “Butts” had deserted his piano, and
was sitting in the New England Kitchen greedily inhaling the smoke of
a cigarette. The Beauties of the Harem were whispering together in
their dressing-room; and one of them had an air of inward apprehension
natural to a young woman who had swallowed her chewing gum.
Mrs. Simpson was in the back room, bathing her husband’s face. “Shine,”
alone in the Hall of Mystic Marvels, dressed in his own trousers and
a coat and cap that belonged to “Butts,” received the police with a
battered grin.
“’S all right,” he said. “A gang o’ strong arms tried to rush the
ticket office. I guess they got away with ev’rythin’ but this.” He
showed a torn five-dollar bill. “The boss’s in the back.”
He pointed the way to them. When they came out again, with another
version of the trouble, he had disappeared.