A Newport Monk Is Added to the Show--The Boy Teaches Him Some "Manly
Tricks"--The Tent Blows Down and a Panic Follows--Pa Manages the
Animal Act Which Ends in a Novel Manner.
We have added to the show the most remarkable animal that ever was--a
baboon that dresses like a man, and eats at a table, using a knife and
fork, and a napkin. This baboon has been playing an engagement with the
Four Hundred at Newport, dining with the crowned heads at that resort,
but the confounded baboon got to be too human, and he fell in love with
an heiress, and scared one of the Willie boys that was also in love with
her. His friends were afraid that the baboon would cut Willie out
entirely, or get jealous and injure Willie, so the manager of the Four
Hundred show decided to banish the baboon, and our show sent pa to
Newport to buy the baboon and bring him to our show at New York.
We had the darndest time getting him away from Newport. Pa couldn't do
any with him, but he took to me, 'cause he thought I was his long-lost
brother, and I could do anything with him. We got him in our stateroom
on the boat, and took his clothes away from him, 'cause he only wears
his clothes when he is being dined and wined, and we chained him in the
upper berth. He just raised the very deuce on the way down to New York.
After pa and I got to sleep that baboon got my clothes, and put them on,
slipped the chain over his head, jumped through the transom, and went
into every berth where the transom was open, and chatted with the people
who occupied the berths. There was an old man and woman from New
Hampshire in one berth, and when the monk got in their berth and began
to talk the Newport language, the old man thought it was me, and he
said: "Now, bub, you go away to your pa."
The monk went out, and got into another berth, and crawled under the
bunk, and when the woman came in to go to bed, she looked under it to
see if any man was there. When she saw our baboon she yelled "fire," and
the officers of the boat pulled him out by the hind leg, and tore my
pant leg off. Pa and I had to sit up the rest of the night with him, and
when we landed him with the show at Madison Square Garden we felt
relieved.
[Illustration: When She Saw the Baboon She Yelled Fire.]
One woman on the boat has followed us ever since to collect damages from
pa, 'cause his oldest son, the monk, proposed to her. Gee, it seems to
me a woman ought to know the difference between a baboon and a man, but
some women will marry anything that wears clothes.
The monk took to me so, Pa said I must teach him everything I could that
men do, so I thought it would do no harm to teach him to chew tobacco,
'cause he could already smoke cigarettes, so I borrowed a chew from the
boss canvasman, a great big chew of black plug tobacco, and the monk
grabbed it, and chewed it awhile, just before the afternoon performance,
and swallowed it. I knew that settled the monk, and when the audience
came along by his cage, and pa was trying to get him to perform, as he
did at Newport, eating dinner like a man, the monk turned pale, and his
stomach ached, and he stood on his head, and held his stomach in both
hands, and kicked the table over. Then he hit pa a swat with his foot,
and wound his tail around pa's neck, and laid his head on pa's shirt
bosom, and was seasick.
Pa said: "Well, this beats everything. What did you do to him?"
I told pa I had only been teaching the monk manly tricks, and pa said:
"Well, you have overdone it." And then the Humane society had pa
arrested for cruelty to animals. But the monk got over it, and now he
tries to be a masher, and winks at women, and flirts with them just as
the men do at Newport.
* * * * *
We thought we were smart when we held up the railroad for damages back
in Pennsylvania, after the wreck, but we are getting a dose of our own
medicine. At Poughkeepsie there came up a wind and rainstorm that blew
the tent down right in the midst of the evening performance, and scared
everybody half to death. Several people were hit by tent poles and hurt
some, and it was the wildest scene I ever saw, and people who got out
alive ran away in the dark, and somebody said the animals had all got
loose, and some of the people never stopped running till daylight the
next morning.
Some run into the river, and the ambulances carried the injured to
hospitals. Pa stampeded with the elephants, and never showed up till
noon the next day. By that time at least 1,000 people had filed claims
for damages, and all the lawyers from Albany to New York were on our
trail.
The managers appointed pa to settle with the injured, and the way he
argued with those people was a caution. One old woman was killed, and pa
tried to show her relatives that as she was old and helpless, and more
or less a burden to the family, they ought to pay the show something for
getting her off their hands. One tramp had his feet cut off, and pa
tried to show him how much he would save in shoes the rest of his life,
and that he was in big luck. We left pa at Poughkeepsie to settle the
cases, and went on to New York, and we heard the people had lynched him,
but he showed up in a couple of days with money left. Now all the
lawyers in New York are after us with claims and they have attached most
everything, and the show is up against it.
What a difference it makes who wants damages. When we were working the
railroad for damages, it was a cinch, and like getting money from home,
but now that the people are working us for damages, for being smashed up
under our tent, we look upon it as a crime, and tell them it is an act
of Providence, and that the show is not to blame for a windstorm. But
the lawyers can't be very pious, for they won't believe in the act of
Providence racket, and we shall have to cough up all the profits of the
season.
Since we got settled in New York for a two weeks' stand, in Madison
Square Garden, we are having the tents repaired, and don't have to put
up and take down tents, and ride all night on trains. We are all
stopping at hotels and getting rested, and pa is having a chance to
shine.
The managers think pa is trying to commit suicide, for he wants to take
the place of anybody who is sick or drunk, and is the understudy of
everybody. We got one act that just curdles your blood, a cage in the
ring, with lions and tigers and leopards, who go through all kinds of
stunts. One lion rides a horse and jumps through hoops, and lands on the
back of the horse, and jumps on a staging and lets the horse go around
the ring, and then jumps on again. The horse is blindfolded, so he don't
know it is a lion that jumps on his back, but thinks it is a man.
The tigers ride bicycles, and the leopards jump about wherever the
trainer tells them to; a monkey acts as clown, and a little elephant
runs a make-believe automobile. That act alone is worth the price of
admission.
Well, the regular trainer went to Coney Island, and got drunk, and we
either had to cut out that performance, or give back the money, and the
manager was wailing about it, 'cause nothing makes a circus man wail
like giving back good money. Then pa said he would save the day by
taking charge of the animal act. He said he had watched it every day,
and knew how to do it, and he could dress up in the clothes of the
regular trainer, and the animals wouldn't know the difference. Gee, but
I was scared to have pa try to run that animal show, and I think
everyone in the show believed it would be pa's finish. I felt like an
orphan when pa came out of the dressing-room with the trainer's clothes
on, though pa's stomach was so big you would think a blindfolded horse
would know pa was no trainer.
Well, pa went in the round cage made of bar iron, and motioned to the
attendants to send the animals into the cage through the chute from the
animal quarters. The first to come were two tigers that were to ride
velocipedes. I trembled for pa when they went in and waved their tails
and looked at pa as much as to say: "O, we won't do a thing to you."
They actually looked at each other and winked; but pa motioned to the
velocipedes, and looked fierce, and when they hesitated about getting
on, pa said: "You won't, won't you," and he took a club filled with lead
and started for the biggest tiger. He hesitated a moment, and then he
jumped on the machine, and the other followed, and they raced around,
and then pa made them get off and jump hurdles. Finally he motioned to a
shelf for them to jump up onto, and when they hesitated he kicked one in
the slats, and hit the other with the club, and they went up on that
shelf too quick, but they stayed there and snarled at pa, and I was
afraid they would jump on him when his back was turned.
Then they brought in the blind horse and the lion, and the lion was onto
pa, and he struck right off. He got up on the pedestal from which he was
to jump onto the horse's back, but when the horse came around the lion
wouldn't jump, and pa said: "I'll give you one more chance," and the
horse went under the lion, and he wouldn't jump. So pa stopped the horse
and took an iron bar and knocked the lion off onto the floor, and he
growled at pa, but pa kept mauling him, and finally the lion jumped up
on the pedestal and seemed to say: "Bring on your horse," and pa started
the horse, and Mr. Lion made his jumps all right, and the audience
cheered pa.
[Illustration: Pa Kept Mauling the Lion.]
All the animals went through their stunts all right, but I thought I
could see they were laying for pa, and I wished he was out of the cage.
The wind-up came when the lions were seated on benches, and the elephant
was between them, and the tigers and leopards made a pyramid, and the
monkey was clawing around pa's legs. The signal was about to be given
for the animals to return through the chute, when the monkey tackled
pa's legs like a football player, the elephant pushed pa over, and the
lions pawed him and snarled, and the tigers took a mouthful out of pa's
pants, and the leopards snatched his red coat off, and the signal was
given for them to get out of the cage, and they went out like boys at
recess, leaving pa in the cage with the blind horse, with not clothes
enough left on him to wad a gun. He was not even scratched, however, the
animals having just combined to humiliate pa.
The audience cheered. Pa said "Well, wouldn't that skin you." They threw
him an overcoat to put on, and he bowed like a hero, and quit the ring
cage, and was met outside by the whole show management, and
congratulated on having more nerve than any man alive.
Pa said: "If you will give me a shotgun loaded with bird shot, I will
make those animals get on their knees at the next performance, and beg
my pardon. You can discharge your trainer, and I will teach them a lot
of new stunts."
Say, pa is a wonder, and he has already got old Barnum beat a block.