MORE ADVENTURE.
The crowd standing around the fakir were so astonished by his sudden
movement that for the instant no one but the old countryman attempted
to stop him.
The farmer caught the rascal by the arm, but was quickly flung off
and into the crowd on his back, where he lay, too dazed even to speak.
“He’s going to rob that man!” cried Neka.
There was no time to say more. To the astonishment of the boy and his
companions, the scamp tore along close to where they were standing.
Neka was the first to act in this emergency. Leaping forward, he put
out his foot, and down went the fakir flat on his face in the dirt of
the country road.
“Wot did yer do dat fer?” he growled, as he struggled up and gasped
for the wind that had been knocked out of him. “Do yer want me ter
hit yer, sonny?”
He attempted to go on, but Neka caught his arm, and a second later
Longfellow Wadsworth and Bindley also had their hands on him.
By this time the crowd was in pursuit, the countryman coming up in
the rear, puffing and blowing, for he was old and feeble.
“Hold him! He is a thief! Don’t let him git away from ye!” he yelled.
“We have him,” replied the elocutionist. “Is there an officer around?”
“Wot yer goin’ ter arrest me fer?” asked the fakir, brazenly. “I
wasn’t doin’ nuthin’, only going ter git change fer that old gent.”
“He was going to run off with my five-dollar bill,” puffed the old
farmer.
“What’s the trouble here?” demanded an officer, coming up, club in
hand.
Matters were quickly explained. The five-dollar bill was given back
to the old countryman, and he refused to make a complaint against the
fakir.
The scamp was about to decamp when Neka told the officer to hold him.
“He is wanted for trying to steal a bicycle from Harry Lardale, son
of the county clerk,” he explained. “I am sure Mr. Lardale will lodge
a complaint. Besides that, I think he is a fellow who knocked me
unconscious on the road and robbed me a few days ago.”
“I’ll take him in if you’ll come along and make a complaint,” replied
the officer, briefly.
Neka agreed to this, and soon the entire party were on their way to
the Carmine police station.
On his way the fakir begged hard to be let go. He was closely watched
by Neka, and to a good purpose, for as they neared the jail the boy
saw him attempt to throw something away.
“What is that?” he cried. “The prisoner threw it away.”
An examination was made and the object was found. It proved to be an
oddly shaped bit of ivory, carved and polished.
“My pocket-piece!” cried Neka. “Old Jerry Brown gave me that,” he
explained to Longfellow Wadsworth. “This proves that this chap is the
one who assaulted me.”
“No doubt you are right.”
“What else did he have belonging to you?” asked the officer, becoming
interested.
“A couple of dollars in money, and a pocket-knife, an old one, with a
brass handle, marked ‘Neka.’”
By this time the station was reached. A complaint was made, and the
prisoner was examined. The brass-handled knife was found in a back
pocket, also fifteen dollars and a half.
Neka said if the money and knife were returned to him he would not
make a complaint, not wishing to wait around Carmine until the trial
should come off.
The thief agreed to restore the stolen things, and did so. Then he
was locked up until Harry Lardale could be heard from.
It may be said here that the bicyclist appeared against him the very
next day, and that the scamp was tried and convicted, and sent to
prison for one year.
When Neka and Longfellow Wadsworth returned to their hotel the
elocutionist asked the boy to show him the pocket-piece he had
obtained from old Jerry Brown.
“An odd bit of a keepsake, truly,” he mused, as he turned it over.
“I think a good deal of it,” said Neka. “Jerry thought a good deal
of it, too, and only gave it to me when he thought he could not live
any longer.”
“Had he anything to say about it when he presented it?”
“No, excepting that I should keep it, and not let Daniel Bambo take
it away from me, because it was a charmed piece, and would some day
bring me great luck.”
“Ah!”
The elocutionist said no more, but the bit of ivory and what the dead
juggler had said about it set him to thinking deeply.
“You take good care of that bit of ivory, Neka,” he remarked, the
next morning. “I’m a bit superstitious myself, and I believe that
carries with it your whole luck in the future.”
The boy did not altogether understand what he meant. He wanted to ask
several questions, but Longfellow Wadsworth cut him short.
“I’ve been looking over the ground,” he went on, “and I don’t know
but what we had better try our luck at Cambron to-morrow, and lay off
to-night. There is a charity fair going on at Cambron, but perhaps
the town is big and rich enough to turn out for both affairs. I don’t
know of any other town to strike in this section.”
“Cambron always was a good show town,” said Bindley, who was taking
breakfast with them. “You won’t lose anything by going there.”
“The circus certainly did very well there,” mused Neka. “We might try
it. We can’t expect first-class stands every night.”
“In the meanwhile, I will wire ahead and see what we can do at
Washingtonville,” went on Longfellow Wadsworth. “We may as well be
making dates ahead.”
Neka laughed.
“We’ll soon want an advance agent and all that sort of thing,” he
said.
“Certainly,” rejoined Bindley. “Your route will have to be mapped out
at least a month or six weeks ahead. You know some shows book ahead
the whole season, but then they are the big guns.”
A day of rest after the trying work at the fair was welcome to all
hands. They took the coach for Cambron, arriving there just before
dinner.
As Longfellow Wadsworth had said, there was a charity fair in
progress there. It was held in an armory directly in the rear of the
hall in which shows were given, the two buildings being so close that
the back windows of each were scarcely five feet apart.
When they went to hire the hall they were told they could do but
little. Yet, undaunted, they went ahead, paid the rent, and got out
their bills.
At this the managers of the charity fair grew very bitter, and were
loud in their denunciation of the “tramp actors,” as they termed our
friends.
“We’ll boycott ’em, and get our friends to do the same,” they said.
So angry was the head of the committee that he had a banner painted,
which read as follows:
“Rally to the fair, everybody! Don’t go to any fake show, but spend
your money for the benefit of the hospital! Leave tramp actors to
themselves!”
This banner was tacked on a wide spreader attached to a stick, and
a man was put on the street to carry it around, especially in the
vicinity of the show hall.
Neka laughed when he saw the banner, but Longfellow Wadsworth and
Bindley were furious.
“I’ll fix ’em!” stormed the elocutionist. “I’ll give ’em a banner
that will make ’em howl.”
“I wouldn’t raise a quarrel,” said Neka. “It will do us no good.
Rather try to make them ashamed of themselves.”
“But how?” asked Bindley.
“Get up a banner praising the fair, and say we’ll be there ourselves
to-night.”
“Ha! ha! a good idea!”
The banner was made, and Bindley went to work on it. When finished,
it read as follows:
“Go to the fair by all means, and spend all the money you can afford
in the good cause. Afterward attend the great moral exhibition of the
Neka-Wadsworth Specialty Company at Radley’s Hall. To-night Professor
Neka will give a free exhibition of one of his celebrated fire tricks
in front of the armory. Be sure to go to the fair early, so you can
see him. Remember, the company perform in Cambron to-morrow night
only!”
“That will mix matters up,” said Neka. “I wonder what the manager of
the fair will say to that?”
The banner was turned over to an old man, and carted around the
principal streets, and in front of the armory.
At first the committee having the fair in charge were angry. Then
they talked matters over, and came to the conclusion they were not
treating the “actor folks” just right. Half an hour later their
banner was taken in, and it did not appear again.