THE "TATTOOED TWINS."
WANTED--The address of some one who can tattoo with Indian ink on
the person. A. J. H., No. --, --th Street.
This advertisement appeared in a St. Louis Sunday morning paper. The
number and the street are not given for reasons that will at once
present themselves to every intelligent reader. Now there is sometimes
that in an advertisement which attracts one like a pretty girl. A few
lines may furnish a neat little intellectual flirtation, and very
frequently can, like a coy and pretty maiden, keep coaxing a fellow
along until he is perfectly lost in the maze of an affection that he
has neither the tact nor the willingness to try to escape from. As
soon as my eyes lit upon them and the words from the capital W in the
beginning to the period at the end were taken in, I was irrevocably
gone on them. Like the immortal J. N., I immediately lifted the veil
and looked at the suppositious sanctuary behind it, and then saw that
walking art gallery, Capt. Costentenus--known to thousands of people
who saw him travelling as the tattooed man--lying bound hand and foot
upon the earth and surrounded by half a dozen Chinese Tartars, who
were industriously pricking him with pointed instruments, which were
ever and anon dipped into the little basins of blackish-blue liquid.
The scene changed suddenly into a room at No. --, --th Street, and
the Tartars were metamorphosed into a single individual of a decidedly
Caucasian aspect, but with features wrought in that indistinctness
which very frequently is characteristic of the shapes and forms seen
in waking dreams, and the Greek Captain was replaced by an equally
Caucasian subject, who was quietly undergoing the operations of having
his breast tattooed in the most lavish and picturesque manner that
the artist knew how. This idea fastened itself in my mind to such
an extraordinary extent that merely for the purpose of gratifying a
certain instinctive curiosity, as well as to see if my suppositions
were correct, I called at the house indicated next afternoon.
It was a large three-story boarding-house in a very quiet part of the
city, and situated romantically enough to lend the coloring of fact to
the picture I had previously conjured up of the surroundings of the
gentleman who wanted to be tattooed.
A young girl opened the door, who knew nothing of the person who owned
the initials that appeared in the advertisement. I explained that
this was the number and street--it was certainly the right house--and
couldn't she recollect some name that began with an H. No, she could
not. She did not think there was any gentleman boarding in the house
whose name began with an H, and then she recollected that there had
come to the house a few days before a man whose name she did not know.
She would call her mother. "Ma! oh, ma!" rang down through the hallway,
and around behind the staircase, and down into the dining-room, and
up came the assuring response, "I'll be there in a minute." Enter the
landlady with a wet towel on her head, and wiping her fingers on the
corner of her apron. In answer to the daughter's query as to what the
"new gentleman's" name was, she replied, as if she had known him since
the corner-stone of Cheops was laid, that he was Mr. Henneberry. Was
he in? No, not just then, but he would be back in time for dinner,
which would be spread in about half an hour. Somewhat disappointed I
replied that I would take a walk around and call at the end of the
half hour, and was about to leave the door when a voice was heard
on the upper landing, and the words "Hold on!" shouted in a very
peremptory manner brought me to a halt. It was Mr. Henneberry, as I
soon ascertained, when a tall, stout, well-proportioned gentleman, of
handsome features and the prettiest black hair my eyes ever gazed upon,
came down, introduced himself, and invited me in. The object of the
visit was explained in a few words.
"Well," said Mr. Henneberry, "I've been just talking to a gentleman up
in my room, an old sailor, who was crippled some years ago, by falling
from the spar of a South American sailer, so he says, and who appears
to be pretty expert. I rather like the man, and I think he will about
suit me. He needs money, what you don't appear to do, and I think he is
just the very man for what I want. So you see, I think you're a little
late."
I expressed my regret at not having seen the advertisement earlier.
"You see," continued Mr. Henneberry, "I want somebody who will stay
in the house here, and be available at all times during the day. It's
a pretty long job--" and here he checked himself. "No, I don't mean a
long job, because there ain't much of it, but what there is has got to
be done neat and right up to the handle. What sort of work can you do?"
I bared my arm and exhibited a large death-head and cross-bones, an
American eagle, and a bust of George Washington, which I had tattooed
into me, when young and fond and foolish, by a Greek sailor I met in
Milwaukee.
"That's pretty good," said Henneberry. "Where did you learn the
business--if I might call it a business?"
Here I explained that an old sail-maker had taught me the art and
that, having acquired the modus operandi of pricking the color into
the flesh, I was perfectly at home in the business, as I was also an
experienced sketcher.
Further talk followed, in which Mr. Henneberry spoke of tattooing
generally, but made no allusion to the person to be tattooed nor the
extent of the work to be done. At last, as he rose from his chair, as a
gentle reminder that he had said about all he wanted to say, remarked
that I might call again, as he had yet made no definite arrangement
with the man up-stairs and probably would need two.
I went off chagrined, and wished that the old salt with the broken leg,
who had gotten in ahead of me had broken his neck when he fell from
the spar of that South American sailer. I left the door whistling, "We
Parted by the River Side."
A saunter into a shady spot at a safe distance from the house, and a
mind made up to await the outcoming of the successful rival, were the
results of a sudden inspiration. An hour passed, a half more, three
quarters, and it was just about an even couple of hours when out from
the door of No. --, --th Street, limped a middle-aged, bent man, and
he came directly towards me. He passed me by, for about half a block,
when I caught up, and introduced the opening wedge of conversation by
remarking that the weather was a little cooler than folks around there
had been used to for the past month or so.
"Well, yes," was the reply, "but I don't mind it so much. You see I've
hove to in hotter ports than this'll ever be. That sunstroke period was
Injun summer compared with the brimstun climate I've pulled through.
I've been along the African coast when it was hot enough to make a
mill-stun sweat. If they could have just shipped that weather North it
would thaw the North Pole into hot water inside of fifteen minutes."
And then the crippled sailor told of other experiences in other warm
climates, and we talked on in an easy, friendly way for three or four
blocks, when my companion remarked that he was going to take the cars.
I said I was going to do the same, and as soon as we were seated on the
shady side of the conveyance I remarked in a careless, off-hand way:--
"You got ahead of me in that job down at Henneberry's, old man."
He opened his eyes, looked at me half suspiciously, and said: "Then
you're the young man the gentleman was talking about to me. You went to
see him, this afternoon?"
An affirmative was the answer.
"Well, you needn't be so put out. He ain't engaged nobody yet. At least
he ain't closed with me. You see, he's a bit scary. Didn't he tell you
what he wanted?"
"Yes. At least, he left me to infer that he wanted either himself or
somebody else tattooed."
"All over?"
"I thought that was what he meant."
"Well, blast his jib! He made me make all sorts o' promises not to open
my port-hole about it."
"It is a very funny project, isn't it?" asked the reporter.
"Oh, no, not at all. I've been at it afore. I worked at a man up in
Canada for about three months and got him nigh half done, when he
died."
"It's a pretty dangerous operation, this tattooing?" was the next
gentle insinuation.
"Yes, sometimes. But Henneberry can stand it. He looks as if he had
the constitution and he appears to be reckless of the consequences. He
wants to be a show-fellow. He's struck on it, just the same as that
Canada chap who kicked. He's got an idea that there's money in it, and
he's always talkin' about that Grecian chap as is with the circuses,
you know."
"How long will it take to do the job?"
"Well, that I don't exactly know. He talks of havin' two of us at it.
Maybe you're the other fellow, and he's in a stormy hurry about havin'
it finished up, and wants a fellow to stay in the house with him all
the time so that he can take his tattooing just when he feels like
it. Are you good in drawin' dragoons, flyin' fish, elephants, boey
constrictors and sich, young man?"
I replied that I was an adept in delineating animals of the sort named.
"Then I guess he'll want you. I used to be a pretty good drawer myself
afore I fell from that South American, but my hand shakes no little
now; but you just lay the lines, and if I don't stick 'em in as clean
as a copper plate, my name ain't Jack Hogan."
"What will he pay for the job?"
"Well, I asked $600 calc'latin' six months would do it, but he brought
me down to $450 and will pay my board and lodgin'. That ain't bad."
The reporter coincided with Jack Hogan that it appeared to be a pretty
good thing.
"And you don't git your money down either. He wants to be fixed up from
the soles of his feet to near his shirt collar and wristbands, in the
house where he is now, and then he's goin' off to some quiet spot and
have his face and hands and even his ears and the top of his head, for
he's partly bald, done up in some place in the country, or may be out
in some of the Pacific islands, and if it's a bargain between us I'll
have to go with him."
"What catches me," said I, as we got up to leave the car, "is what
Henneberry will do with himself when the finishing touches are all put
on him."
"I can't say, but I s'pose he'll go off to the Sandwich Islands,
marry a nigger squaw, or something of that sort, and come back with a
cock-and-bull story about being captured by savages, and then swing
'round the circle with some circus or other. He's got the money to push
the thing through, and I believe he can stand it. Maybe he'll travel
with old Cos'tenus, and they'll call themselves the tattooed twins."
And the old fellow laughed heartily as he got down carefully from the
platform of the car, and limped away towards the river--perhaps down to
the Bethel Home on the levee.
The foregoing story may be regarded as quite a valuable clue when
associated with a piece of information furnished by an Albany, New
York, journal, whose reporter says the work on Capt. Costentenus's body
pales when compared with that shown by a young man who stopped over in
Albany one evening last summer on his way from Saratoga to his home
in Syracuse. His name is Henry Frumell, and he is but twenty-three
years of age. Although so young, he has, according to his own story,
seen considerable of life. In 1876 he ran away from home, shipped on
a merchant vessel which was trading among the Washington Islands in
South Pacific. While there he underwent the tattooing process, which he
described as the most painful torture ever endured.
"How was it done, and by whom?" he was asked by a reporter.
"By the natives, and with six needles fastened to a stick. Do you see
them (showing the backs of his hands and wrists)? There is a lady's
face on one and a man's on the other. Vermilion red and indigo blue
were used, being pricked in with the needles. Now you see that the work
is executed just as neatly and perfectly as it could possibly be on the
human skin. Well, it took weeks before the design was finished, and it
had to be pricked over a number of times."
"It must have been painful."
"It was. But then I had no choice but to submit."
"Why, were you compelled to undergo the tattooing?"
"Hardly that, but it was wiser to do so."
"How could natives execute the work so perfectly?"
"They used designs given them by a sailor named John Wells, who
belonged to an English vessel. Those on my wrist are not so perfect as
on other portions of my body."
"Did they tattoo you all over?"
"All except a small portion of the left leg above the ankle."
The designs so ineffaceably worked into Frumell's skin are numerous
and beautiful, and some of them so appropriate to the young man's
nationality that it is difficult to imagine how a South Pacific savage,
even with an English sailor for an advisor, should have selected such
fitting pictures. On his back, extending from shoulder to shoulder,
and from the nape of the neck downward was a spirited illustration of
two ships in action. Below it is a snake with protruding fangs and a
scroll with Paul Jones's motto, "Don't tread on me." On his breast is
the national coat of arms worked on the breast of an American eagle
with pinions outspread, and the national colors in its beak. This
covers the entire breast from armpit to armpit, and from the throat
downward. Both arms are literally covered with designs of beasts,
birds, and flowers. The lower limbs are also ornamented, one with the
"Crucifixion of Christ" and the other with the shamrock, harp of Erin,
and other designs. Each kneecap looks like a full-blown rose, with
its vivid coloring and almost perfect imitation of that flower. The
remainder of his body is similarly decorated, over five months being
occupied in the process, and considerable more time being occupied in
healing. His skin has the feeling of the finest velvet, and he says
that he does not experience any evil effects from the immense quantity
of poisonous dye injected into the cuticle. He has tried to eradicate
the designs on his hands by burning, but without avail.