MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
No. 29
SEPT. 11, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
MAKE UP
OR PLAYING
A NEW ROLE
_BY
THE AUTHOR
OF
"MOTOR MATT"_
_Street & Smith
Publishers
New York_
[Illustration: _"Maskee!" cried the astounded Hindoo as Motor Matt
leaped at him_]
MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION
_Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Copyright, 1909, by_
STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y._
=No. 29.= NEW YORK, September 11, 1909. =Price Five Cents.=
MOTOR MATT'S MAKE-UP;
OR,
PLAYING A NEW RÔLE.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. HIGH JINKS IN THE SIDE SHOW.
CHAPTER II. THE "BARKER" SHOWS HIS TEETH.
CHAPTER III. THE MAN FROM WASHINGTON.
CHAPTER IV. A CLUE IN HINDOOSTANEE.
CHAPTER V. SOMETHING WRONG.
CHAPTER VI. A BLUNDER IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS.
CHAPTER VIII. THE PILE OF SOOT.
CHAPTER IX. MATT MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
CHAPTER X. RESCUE!
CHAPTER XI. BILL WILY REPENTS.
CHAPTER XII. MATT LAYS HIS PLANS.
CHAPTER XIII. MOTOR CAR AND AEROPLANE.
CHAPTER XIV. THE OAK OPENING.
CHAPTER XV. AEROPLANE WINS!
CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION.
A BRAVE DEED.
A LOCOMOTIVE HERO.
GEESE DROWN A SQUIRREL.
CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.
=Matt King=, otherwise Motor Matt.
=Joe McGlory=, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of worth and
character, and whose eccentricities are all on the humorous side. A
good chum to tie to--a point Motor Matt is quick to perceive.
=Carl Pretzel=, an old chum who flags Motor Matt and more trouble
than he can manage, at about the same time. In the rôle of detective,
he makes many blunders, wise and otherwise, finding success only to
wonder how he did it.
=Ping=, the Chinese boy.
=Ben Ali=, the Hindoo hypnotist and elephant trainer, who executes a
master-stroke in the matter of his niece, Margaret Manners, and finds
that a letter in Hindoostanee can sometimes prove a boomerang.
=Dhondaram and Aurung Zeeb=, two Hindoos who have appeared before as
confederates of the crafty Ben Ali, and who now show themselves for
the last time in their villainous part, and vanish--one into prison
and the other into parts unknown.
=Margaret Manners=, the niece of the rascally Ben Ali and a ward of
the British nation temporarily. In her particular case, justice is
slow in righting a grievous wrong--and would have been slower but for
Motor Matt and his aëroplane.
=Reginald Pierce Twomley=, who represents the British ambassador,
wears a monocle, and who, in a passage at arms with Dhondaram, proves
himself a man in McGlory's eyes and a near-pard.
=Boss Burton=, manager and proprietor of the "Big Consolidated," who,
in his usual manner, forms hasty conclusions, discovers his errors,
and shows no sign of repentance.
=The Bearded Lady, the Armless Wonder, the Elastic Skin Man, the Zulu
chief and the Ossified Man=, all freaks in the side-show tent, who
appear briefly but brilliantly in the light of a Roman candle.
CHAPTER I.
HIGH JINKS IN THE SIDE SHOW.
"Hello, dere, Viskers!" grinned Carl Pretzel, reaching up to grab the
hairy paw of the Zulu chief.
"Howdy, Dutch!" answered the chief, with a nasal twang that suggested
New England. "By Jocks, I ain't seen yeou in quite a spell. How's
tricks, huh?"
"Dricks iss fine, I bed you. Say, sheef, dis iss mein leedle shink
bard, Ping Pong. He iss der pest efer--oxcept me. Shake hants, Ping,
mit a Zulu sheef vat vas porn near Pangor, Maine."
"Tickled tew death," said the chief effusively, taking the yellow palm
of a small Chinaman who pushed himself closer to the platform.
The scene was the side-show tent of the "Big Consolidated," Boss
Burton's "Tented Aggregation of the World's Marvels." The show had
raised its "tops" at Reid's Lake, near the city of Grand Rapids. A high
wind had prevented Motor Matt from giving his outdoor exhibition of
aëroplane flying, and the disappointed crowds were besieging the side
show, eager to beguile the time until the doors for the big show were
open.
With the exception of Carl and Ping, no outsiders had yet entered the
side-show tent. Carl, having once played the banjo for the Zulu chief
while he was dancing on broken glass in his bare feet, was a privileged
character. He had walked into the tent without so much as a "by your
leave," and he had escorted Ping without any adverse comment by the man
on the door.
The freaks and wonders of the side show were all on their platforms and
ready to be viewed. The Ossified Man had been dusted off for the last
time, the Bearded Lady had just arranged her beard most becomingly, the
Elastic Skin Man was giving a few warming-up snaps to his rubberoid
epidermis, the Educated Pig was being put through a preliminary stunt
by the gentlemanly exhibitor, and the Armless Wonder was sticking a
copy of the Stars and Stripes in the base of a wooden pyramid--using
his toes.
The Armless Wonder occupied the same platform as the Zulu chief. His
specialty was to stand on his head on the wooden pyramid, hold a Roman
candle with one foot, light it with the other, and shoot vari-colored
balls through a hole in the tent roof. In front of the Wonder,
neatly piled on the little stage, were half a dozen long paper tubes
containing the fire balls.
"How you was, Dutch?" inquired the Wonder, doubling up in his chair and
drawing a bandanna handkerchief over his perspiring face with his foot.
"_Ganz goot_," laughed Carl, carelessly picking up one of the Roman
candles. "I vill make you acguainted, oof you blease, mit mein leedle
shink bard."
"Shake!" cried the Wonder heartily, offering his right foot. "It does
me proud to meet up with a friend of Pretzel's."
"Allee same happy days," remarked Ping, releasing the foot and backing
away.
"Yeou tew kids aire chums, huh?" put in the Zulu chief, leaning down to
arrange the row of photographs in front of him.
"Surest t'ing vat you know," answered Carl.
"Dutchy boy heap fine," declared Ping. "We both one-piecee pards."
"That's the talk!" exclaimed the Armless Wonder. "Too much weather for
the flyin' machine to-day, huh? Motor Matt was afeared to go up, I
reckon, Dutch?"
"Afraidt?" protested Carl. "Modor Matt vasn't afraidt oof anyt'ing.
He couldn't haf shtaid ofer der show grounds, und dot's der reason he
dit'nt go oop. Der vind vould haf plowed him galley-vest, und den some."
"I see. These here aëroplanes are hard things to handle, and----Holy
smoke! Drop it! Put it out!"
Carl, as has already been stated, had picked up one of the Roman
candles. While talking with the Armless Wonder, he leaned back against
a tent pole and clasped his hands--the candle in one of them--behind
him.
Ping had stepped back. The Roman candle, held fuse end outward, looked
most inviting. Digging a match out of his kimono, Ping scratched it on
the pole and applied the flame unseen to the fuse.
While the Armless Wonder was talking, Carl heard a long-drawn-out hiss,
a smell of smoke came to his nostrils, and a Niagara of sparks floated
around him. Naturally he was startled, and it flashed over him that
something was wrong with the Roman candle. Bringing the candle around
in front of him for examination, he had it leveled at the Wonder the
very instant the first fire ball was due. The ball was not behind
schedule. Rushing from the end of the tube, it caught the Wonder in the
breast, and he turned a back somersault off the platform.
Bewildered by the mysterious cause of the situation, Carl swerved the
candle in order to get a look through the smoke and sparks at the place
where the Wonder had been seated.
A roar came from the Zulu chief. A ball of flaming red had slapped
against his shoulder, and he jumped for the next platform on the right.
Landing on the edge, his weight overturned the structure. There was a
scream from the Bearded Lady and a whoop from the Elastic Skin Man, and
the next moment they landed in a tangled heap on top of the Zulu chief.
"Put it out!" the Armless Wonder continued to yell.
"Point it up or down!" bellowed the gentlemanly trainer of the Educated
Pig.
"Ged some vater!" howled Carl, running back and forth and waving the
candle; "ged a pucket oof vater und I vill drown der t'ing in it!"
The Dutch boy didn't know what to do. If he dropped the candle he
might get hit with some of the balls himself, and if he turned it
straight upward he might set fire to the top of the tent. While he was
running up and down, trying frantically to think of some way out of the
trouble, of course the fire stick was continuing to unload.
Whizz--slap!
A wad of yellow fire hit the Pig, which squealed and bolted. The
gentlemanly attendant tried to head off the Porcine Marvel, but it ran
between his outspread feet and knocked him off the stand. A rain of
lettered blocks followed.
The frantic Pig bunted into Ping, tripped him, and hurled him against
Carl. Both boys went down, and Carl rolled over and over, discharging
red, white, and blue balls as he revolved.
Up to that moment the Ossified Man had escaped. But now his turn had
come. He was said to have been turning to stone for thirty years, and
was supposed to be so brittle that he had to be handled with extreme
care.
The first ball that struck him, however, caused him to jump off his
board slab with a yell. From the way he rushed to get out of the tent,
it was pretty certain that he was as wiry and pliable as the average.
The Educated Pig, to an accompaniment of yells, howls, and screams,
and with the lurid glare of the popping balls lighting the smoky
interior of the tent, ran on blindly, overturned the stage set aside
for the Zulu chief and the Armless Wonder, showered broken glass over
everybody, and then tore through the tent wall and out into the open.
Naturally, this Bedlam, suddenly turned loose in the tent, had excited
the wonder and curiosity of the ticket seller, the "barker," and the
man at the door.
As the man at the door looked in, the last of the balls struck him
below the belt, and he collapsed in the arms of the "barker," who was
crowding in behind him.
The last of the balls! That hollow, pasteboard tube seemed to have been
a perfect mine of shooting stars. It had disgorged itself of a dozen.
Carl had not counted them--he was too busy with other matters--but it
seemed to him as though the tube had been fully an hour getting rid of
its contents.
A madder assortment of freaks it would have been harder to find than
wrangled and protested, there in the side-show tent, while they rubbed
their bruises and shook the kinks out of themselves.
"It was one of the Armless Wonder's Roman candles," came in sepulchral
tones from the Ossified Man as he climbed back to his slab.
"I'll quit the show, and give two weeks' notice this minute," piped the
Bearded Lady as she picked her way through the scattered glass, "if
they don't cut out these fireworks. My goodness! You might just as well
be killed outright as scart to death. Wha'ju jump onto our stage for?"
and she glared at the chief, who was gently massaging his burned spot.
"By Jocks," answered the chief, "I didn't care where I jumped s'long's
I got away from the fireworks."
"It was the Dutchman done it," flared the Wonder.
"He's a freak," rumbled the Ossified Man. "Kick him out."
"I don'd peen a freak," said Carl angrily, throwing the burned-out tube
at the O. M. "Oof I vas, den here iss vere I should shday."
"Did you set that Roman candle to goin'?" demanded the "barker"
fiercely.
"I don'd set him to going, py chimineddy! I hat him in my handt, und he
vent off mit himseluf. Dot's all aboudt it."
"This ain't no place for them kind o' jokes," cried the Elastic Skin
Man. "He's played hob with this outfit: Give him a h'ist!"
The ticket seller, the "barker," and the man on the door all three
fell upon Carl. Between them they had the Dutch boy turning cartwheels
through the entrance.
Ping, the cause of all the trouble, slipped away quietly under the
canvas wall--but not until he had picked up something white from the
earthen floor of the tent. The object lay close to where Carl had lain,
and Ping conceived the idea that it belonged to the Dutch boy and that
it was his duty to recover it and return it to the owner.