[Illustration: THE CIRCUS IN THE MOUNTAINS.]
I saw a circus in a mountain town. The mountaineers swarmed from far
and near, and lined the streets on every hand with open mouth and bated
breath, as the grand procession, with band, and clown, and camels,
and elephants, and lions, and tigers, and spotted horses, paraded in
brilliant array. The excitement was boundless when the crowd rushed
into the tent, and they left behind them a surging mass of humanity,
unprovided with tickets, and destitute of the silver half of the double
standard. Their interest rose to white heat as the audience within
shouted and screamed with laughter at the clown, and cheered the girl
in tights, and applauded the acrobats as they turned somersaults over
the elephant. But temptation whispered in the ear of a gentleman in tow
breeches, and he stealthily opened his long bladed knife and cut a hole
in the canvas. A score of others followed suit, and held their sides and
laughed at the scenes within. But as they laughed a showman slipped
inside, armed with a policeman's "billy." He quietly sidled up to the
hole where a peeper's nose made a knot on the tent on the inside.
"Whack!" went the "billy"--there was a loud grunt, and old "Tow
Breeches" spun 'round like a top, and cut the "pigeon wing," while his
nose spouted blood. "Whack!" went the "billy" again, and old "Hickory
Shirt" turned a somersault backwards and rose "a-runnin'." The last
"whack" fell like a thunderbolt on the Roman nose of a half drunk old
settler from away up at the head of the creek. He fell flat on his back,
quivered for a moment, and then sat up and clapped his hand to his
bleeding nose and in his bewilderment exclaimed: "Well I'll be durned!
hel-lo there stranger!" he shouted to a bystander, "whar wuz you _at_
when the lightnin' struck the show?" Then I saw a row of bleeding noses
at the branch near by, taking a bath; and each nose resembled a sore
hump on a camel's back.
[Illustration: "WHACK!" WENT THE "BILLY!"]
So it is around the great arena of political fame and power. "Whack!"
goes the "billy" of popular opinion; and politicians, like old "Tow
Breeches," spin 'round with the broken noses of misguided ambition and
disappointed hope. In the heated campaign many a would-be Webster lies
down and dreams of the triumph that awaits him on the morrow, but he
wakes to find it only a dream, and when the votes are counted his
little bird hath flown, and he is in the condition of the old Jew.
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Jew hung up their socks together on
Christmas Eve. The Englishman put his diamond pin in the Irishman's
sock; the Irishman put his watch in the sock of the Englishman; they
slipped an egg into the sock of the Jew. "And did you git onny thing?"
asked Pat in the morning. "Oh yes," said the Englishman, "I received a
fine gold watch, don't you know. And what did you get Pat?" "Begorra,
I got a foine diamond pin." "And what did you get, Jacob?" said the
Englishman to the Jew. "Vell," said Jacob, holding up the egg. "I got
a shicken but it got avay before I got up."