“Now as to a lay for you! Of course, first of all, I have to grab off
my fifty of the net--it’s my show and my pull! Then there’s the
‘Prof’--Professor Jewelle. He has his twenty-five per cent. I’ll tell
you straight, now, I have been getting by with those dickerdoodles
I’ve had out on the stand for fifteen per cent., and ‘prof’ and I have
divided the other ten. But they were crumby! Their suits were wrinkled
worse than an elephant’s dewlap, and the nap of their plug-hats was
fruzzled up like the fur in the mane of the Australian witherlick. No
pull to that class! The jaspers jogged right past without being a mite
impressed. If you grab in with us your looks and your style make you
worth a lay of twenty-five per cent. Now what say?”
“I’ll grab,” I told him, and never did a man hire with less idea of just
what kind of a business he was entering or what pay he was going to get
for his labor.
“You say your name is Ross Sidney,” said the boss, remembering what I
had told him. “Mine is Jeff Dawlin, Ross, and there’s no mistering among
partners.” He gave me a few dirty sheets of paper. “There’s your spiel
all written out. You can add your own talk as you work into the spirit
of the thing. The idea is get them to stop, look, listen--and then
coax till they come in. If they come out squealing, you go on and
bawl them--bawl them down! There’s some good work to be done in that
line--and you’re husky and can scare ’em, providing Big Mike hasn’t
already scared ’em enough. There isn’t a thing in the show but what’s
a fake--of course you understand that. Most of ’em are too ashamed to
squeal.”
He was leading me into the inner mysteries of the place while he talked.
He made no reference to the objects which were ranged around the sides
of the big room, plainly despising them as curiosities which could not
possibly interest anybody. But they interested me mightily and I lagged
behind to give each one a glance in passing.
“Siamese Susie” was made up of a couple of big wax dolls confined in a
single dress. “The Peruvian Cockatoo” manifestly had been, when he
was alive, the humble master of some up-country barn-yard; now he was
tricked out with all sorts of dyed false feathers, including an enormous
topknot. The “Mormon Giant” was a papier-mâché figure, and there was a
hideous thing labeled “Mermaid” constructed of the same material as the
giant. There were a few other nondescript exhibits in dingy glass
cases or mounted on stands draped in dirty hangings. I had never seen
a collection of more shameless frauds. I began to understand that I had
not been let in on the main proposition for money-making.
On one side of the room there were curtains lettered: “Professor
Jewelle, the World’s Greatest Seer.” The professor came out when Dawlin
called for him. He wore a wig and false white whiskers, and had watery
eyes, and a breath like a whiff from a distillery chimney. A big brute
of a man was loafing in one corner of the room, and I reckoned that this
person must be Big Mike; I had seen many such of the bouncer sort when I
had made my rounds, hunting for experiences.
Mr. Dawlin introduced me, and I seemed to make a good impression.
When he slyly slid out the information that I, too, had been having
troubles which had kept me under cover for some weeks, I noted that I
stood even higher in their estimation.
As we talked on I began to feel a bit ambitious. I thought I might be
able to improve business.
“Look here,” I suggested, “why not put a tank in here and let me do some
of my diving stunts? It would be a novelty--there really doesn’t seem to
be much to the show as it stands.”
“Say, I haven’t pulled a greenhorn into camp, have I?” inquired Mr.
Dawlin with a good deal of tartness. “Show? Good gad! who ever said we
wanted a show?”