Side Show Studies Part 7

"Women _are_ difficult to understand," agreed the Press Agent as the Proprietor paused to moisten his throat, "and a man who is in love with one of 'em is just about as unaccountable for his actions. I had that fact engraved upon the tablets of my memory when a guy named Merritt and myself were running a dime museum in Pittsburg. Merritt was a good, hard-headed business man as a rule and he made a first-cla.s.s lecturer; but when I found that he was taking to 'dropping into poetry' and delivering his descriptions of the freaks in verse, I began to get leary about the condition of the contents of his head. The poetry was always extemporaneous and was pretty bad, but it amused the crowd when it wasn't too sentimental.

"As I say, the poetry was strictly on the b.u.m, but what it lacked in quality it made up in quant.i.ty and he could spiel it off by the yard.

Whenever he got stuck for a rhyme he would blow the whistle which he used to call the crowd in front of the freak he was lecturing about and move to the next platform. That didn't happen often, but whenever we had a Circa.s.sian Beauty among the freaks Merritt's poetry got so sentimental that no one but a bride and groom could stand for it--and it had to be early in the honeymoon at that. He would ring in turtle doves and azure skies and all the wishy-washy things in natural history and mythology and it was positively sickening.

"He sure had a soft place in his heart for Circa.s.sian Beauties, and as they were as common as wire tappers on Broadway under a reform administration he was always getting sentimental. We used to get a new lot of freaks each week; our agent in New York engaged 'em and sent on the advertising matter ahead, and when we looked over the list I could see Merritt's face brighten up if there happened to be one of the fuzzy blondes included in the bunch.

"Business was good, in spite of Merritt's poetry, so that I didn't kick when I saw that another one was coming. It was a good a.s.sortment: a Legless Wonder, The Man Who Breaks Paving Stones With His Bare Fists, a pair of Siamese Twins, a Leopard Boy and a particularly fuzzy Circa.s.sian Beauty. I saw Merritt's eyes grow soft when he looked at her photograph, and I prayed for a large proportion of the newly wedded among the audience that week.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"He made sheep's eyes and threw a chest."_]

"Well, Merritt starts in with the Stone Breaker and restrains himself pretty well; the only sentiment he got in was a fervent wish that 'a certain blonde beauty, with eyes of cerulean blue, would not break a heart which time would prove tender and true,' as ruthlessly as this man cracked rocks. He was gradually working up to the blonde, you understand, and he got warmer as he approached. The next one was the Legless Wonder, and he got a little tangled up in his comparisons when he sprung his poetry about him and tried to ring in the Circa.s.sian, and he had to blow his whistle like blazes to spare the blushes of the audience. The Siamese Twins gave him a good opening about 'bonds eternal' and the 'season vernal' and he didn't do a thing with it. The Leopard Boy was a cinch for him as he declaimed that

"'They say that beauty is but skin deep.

And as you gaze upon this freak, You will, I think, agree with me, That though beneath he fair may be, You'd much prefer to look the same As the fair being who next will claim Our admiration and attention, With charms too numerous to mention.'

"That made the Leopard Boy mad, for you know that freaks are as proud of their deformities as a mother is of a new baby, and look on normal people as objects of pity. But Merritt blew his whistle and pa.s.sed on to the Circa.s.sian, and he made sheep's eyes and threw a chest as his fingers toyed with her peroxide locks. Say, it was sickening to listen to, and I saw that even the Stone Breaker was showing signs of distress and couldn't stand much of it. He bore up pretty well at first, while Merritt stuck to describing the 'golden locks and eyes of blue,' but when he got to the 'sugar is sweet and so are you,' stage he commenced to get mad and moved over to the platform.

"'Say, Mag,' says he, 'get down offen dat staige an' come away from de guy. It ain't in our contrac' dat we has ter stand for his gettin' soft on youse an' stringin' youse like dat. Come down, er I'll climb up an'

break his face fer him.'

"'Sure, Mike,' says the blonde, and climbs down. That made Merritt mad and he talks real English without any poetic frills for a minute. He allowed that he could lick any Stone Breaker that ever came off the Bowery, and when he started to prove it there was a mix-up which made the breaking up of 'The Society upon the Stanislaus' look like a fist fight between two Frenchmen. The walls were covered with curiosities from all over the world, and pretty soon they were flying through the air. Merritt yanked down an Indian war club and started for the Stone Breaker and somebody swatted him over the head with a mummy. The Legless Wonder couldn't join in, but he contributed a two-headed calf which was preserved in a jar of alcohol, and the Leopard Boy grabbed a bunch of Zulu spears and prodded every one in reach. Even the blonde was something of a sc.r.a.pper and she mixed in with a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of stuffed animals and preserved specimens, to say nothing of some choice language which she hadn't learned in Circa.s.sia. The place was pretty well wrecked by the time the police arrived and separated the fighters.

"'What's all this row about, anyway?' asks the sergeant after they had quieted things down.

"'Dat guy was tryin' to get nex' to me wife, de Circa.s.sian Beaut','

answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts b.u.m poetry about her, an' I won't stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight left in him and tried to break loose, but the Circa.s.sian's remarks wilted him and I never knew him to use poetry again.

"'Aw, wot's de use, Mike?' says she. 'Youse can't crack a ting dat ain't hard, an' his sky-piece is made of mush.'"

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TIGERS AND THE POWER OF HYPNOTISM

Chauncey Depew was at the bottom of all the trouble; not the punctured senator from the state of New York, but his namesake, one of the handsomest double-striped royal Bengal tigers ever captured. Depew was the central figure in the group which Miller, the trainer of tigers, had worked so hard to educate, and it was his rebellion which made the teacher's labors of years come to naught. Late in the season, after months spent in giving the finishing touches to their education while they were with a small part of the show which was exhibited near Cleveland, the tigers were brought to Dreamland; a group of eight magnificent beasts, all jungle bred and each worthy of a place in any menagerie. Perhaps it was the discomfort of the journey in the small traveling cages, possibly the change in the surroundings and the nearness of the other animals excited them; but whatever the cause, there was trouble in the narrow runway at the back of the dens when they entered it to go to the exhibition cage for their first Coney Island appearance.

The sound of their snarling and growling, the reports of pistol shots and the cracking of training whips caused a sensation of uneasiness in the audience until the first tiger bounded through the door at the back of the cage, closely followed by a half-dozen others. Dangerous beasts they looked as they threw themselves against the stout bars, which rattled from the impact of their great bodies, and the front seats of the auditorium were quickly vacated by the audience. The noise in the runway continued, but the deep throaty growls which came from behind the dens were of a different quality from the snarling and yapping of the seven beasts in the exhibition cage, and when the last of the tigers appeared in the doorway the first arrivals made renewed efforts to escape through the bars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"The first tiger bounded through the door."_]

It was Depew; not the good-natured-looking great cat whose "I-have-eaten-the-canary" expression and smug whiskers had suggested his name, but a jungle tiger who had "gone bad," as the animal trainers call it, and who stood for a moment in the doorway, wrathfully surveying his frantic companions and selecting a victim. Froth was dripping from his snarling lips, his small eyes were blazing like two points of flame, the hair on his neck and back stood up like bristles, and his great tail struck the door-casing resounding whacks, as he lashed it from side to side. Only a moment he stood there, and then the great striped body hurtled through the air as if shot from a catapult, and covering a good twenty feet in the spring it landed fair on Bombay, one of the largest tigers in the group. The aim was a true one and the sound of breaking bone mingled with a scream of pain from his victim, as Bombay sank under the weight of the blow, his cervical vertebrae crushed between Depew's powerful jaws.

The door had been closed behind Depew when he made his spring, and the other tigers were chasing madly about the great cage, looking for a chance to escape. There was no desire to fight left in them, but when they collided with each other they snapped and struck with the instinct of self-preservation, their sharp claws and teeth cutting gashes in the sleek striped coats. It was evident that all training had been forgotten, that fear of anything so puny as man had departed from the minds of the tigers, and a groan went up from the audience when the door was opened and quickly closed behind Miller, the trainer, who stood, whip and training rod in hand, in the cage with the maddened animals. He went about his work as quietly as if it were only an ordinary performance, his object being to return his pupils to their dens before further damage was done and to try to make them recognize that they were obeying him.

Depew was still crouched on the body of his victim, biting at the neck and growling ferociously, his tail lashing from side to side. Miller never took his eyes from him and kept between him and the door as he called the others by name and tried to regain control of them. One tiger after another was released, glad of the opportunity to escape, as the door to the runway was opened at Miller's signal, until only Depew, the body of Bombay and the trainer occupied the cage.

The other tigers had entered into a general free fight in the runway, but the noise of their bickering was unheeded in the excitement of the contest in the exhibition cage. Depew rose as Miller cracked his whip and approached him, and made a rush which the trainer met with his p.r.o.nged training rod, driving it hard between the widely opened jaws while his whip rained blows upon the tiger's face. But he was only checked for a moment, and under his fiercer attack the trainer was forced to give ground. They were so close that the tiger could not spring, but he struck savagely with his great forepaws and tried again and again to pa.s.s the guard which Miller maintained with the training rod, using it as a fencer uses a foil. It was an unequal contest and the trainer realized that he was beaten; Depew would not be driven from the cage. The useless training whip was discarded and a savage rush from the tiger was met by a pistol shot in the face, blank cartridge, of course, but effective for a moment. Five more shots followed in quick succession and the trainer backed quickly toward the door, when his foot slipped, he was on his back, and Depew, quick to seize the advantage, stood over him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Depew was still crouched on the body of his victim."_]

Every keeper connected with the show stood about the cage with the Roman candles, fire extinguishers, pistols and irons which are always kept in readiness, and any or all of them would have willingly entered to rescue the man, but experience has taught them that two cannot work together in a cage with animals. They were quick to act and a stream of water under heavy pressure from the fire hose struck the tiger in the side, exploding fireworks scorched his skin, the din of revolver shots was in his ears, while the wads from the cartridges stung him, but he seemed conscious only of the prostrate form beneath him. At last his chance had come; the trainer who for long months had made him do foolish things which were beneath the dignity of a royal tiger was in his power; the revolver which had so often checked him was emptied; the cruel training rod was powerless, for the hand which held it was pinned to the floor by a huge paw. Cat-like he paused to glory in his triumph, loath to give the _coup de grace_ which would put his victim beyond the reach of suffering, and he stood there growling, the b.l.o.o.d.y slaver from his jaws dripping on the upturned face of the prostrate man.

Animal trainers need to think quickly and to seize the slightest moment of hesitation or indecision on the part of their pupils if they wish to be long-lived, and Miller, as he fell, had thrown his useless pistol out of the cage and uttered the one word "Load!" There was no time for that, but Tudor, seeing that the trainer had one arm free, threw his own pistol through the bars and it slid across the floor of the cage straight as a die to the outstretched hand. It was a time when fractions of a second count and Depew's hesitation robbed him of his revenge. The opened jaws were within a foot of the trainer's throat when the muzzle of the pistol went between them, and Depew, coughing and choking, drew back, his throat scorched by the burning powder, his eyes momentarily blinded by the stream from a fire extinguisher, while Miller struggled to his feet.

"People who see the crowds at my show think that I must coin money,"

said the Proprietor as he joined the Press Agent and the Stranger after the performance. "But that accident in the Arena to-night means a loss of fifty thousand dollars to me."

"Isn't that a high figure, even if they all die?" asked the Stranger, who had been doing a little mental arithmetic.

"For those eight, yes, although a trained tiger is worth all sorts of money, but I have purchased twenty-eight in all for that group, and the others have been killed one by one, fighting among themselves. They average over a thousand apiece, for I bought only the best, and figure up the cost of their keep, transportation and trainer's salaries for three years and you will find that I am not far out. That is the difficulty of the show business in America, the public demands so much.

It is a marvelous thing, when you come to think of it, to see one educated tiger; but if he wore evening clothes and played the fiddle it wouldn't impress the Americans; they would demand a full orchestra. I can give an act an hour long in Paris with one high school horse, but here they want fifty liberty horses in a bunch and only care to watch them for ten minutes. I realized that from Bonavita's act with the lions; no individual lion did very much, but the fact that there were twenty-seven of them in the cage drew the crowds. That's what made me start in with the tigers, and I intended to get a big group, but now I am back where I started from. I don't believe a troupe of tigers can ever be trained."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Depew, coughing and choking, drew back."_]

"Hagenbeck has them," ventured the Stranger. "They seem as tame as kittens with his show."

"That's just the point," answered the Proprietor. "They are as tame as kittens: undersized brutes which have been raised in captivity and which go through their act like domestic cats. That isn't what the public wants. A sensation--the realization that every animal in the cage is a wild animal and that he is liable to remember it at any minute--is what holds attention. That is why I always use jungle animals when I can get them, for, although they can be as well trained, they always perform under protest and it makes it exciting. But the losses from fighting among themselves make it mighty expensive to keep up the big groups which the American public demands."

"That's one of the things which drove me out of the show business," said the Press Agent as he set his empty gla.s.s on the table and signaled to the waiter. "A guy named Merritt and myself had a snake show in New York a few years ago which presented the most complete collection of reptiles ever gotten together, for it contained specimens of every species of wriggler known to herpetology and a good many that were not described in the books. That man Merritt was an inventive genius and had the California sharp, Burbank, beaten a mile when it came to inventing new species. When business was dull he'd take a lot of common, ordinary snakes into the back room and with a bottle of peroxide of hydrogen and an a.s.sortment of aniline dyes he would bring out albinos and spotted and striped snakes which made the scientists open their eyes and kept 'em busy inventing new Latin names.

"His biggest success was 'The Great Two-horned Rhinoceros Serpent,'

which made 'em all sit up for a month, and if I hadn't seen Merritt working over a common boa-constrictor with a pair of shark's teeth and a dish of bird lime it would have fooled me. That snake was proud of the horns which Merritt glued on his head, too, and he used to chase the other snakes around the cage and b.u.t.t 'em like a giddy billy-goat. But in spite of all his ingenuity in originating new varieties, business was dropping off, for the public demanded quant.i.ty as well as quality and we had skinned the local snake market clean. We were sitting in the office one day, figuring on where we could get additions to our collection, when a stout, red-faced little man who had 'sea captain' written all over him came in and asked if we wanted any more snakes. Merritt allowed that we did if the snakes and the prices were right and asked where we could inspect them.

"'Well, I've got one that I brought from Borneo and he's on a ship down in the harbor,' says the Captain. 'We won't argue none about the price, for if you'll come down and take him away you can have him for nothing.'

That made Merritt a little suspicious and he asked the Captain if it were his ship.

"'I reckoned it was until two days ago, when that blame snake broke loose,' he answered irritably. 'Since then he seems to own it and not a man jack of the crew will go below. I've tried to shoot him, but the beggar's too quick, and I want to discharge my cargo, so if you ain't afraid to tackle him, come on.'

"'Me afraid! Me?' says Merritt throwing out a chest. 'Why, man alive, I'm the only living snake charmer who ever dared handle the dangerous Two-horned Rhinoceros Serpent, and do you think I'd weaken before a common Borneo python?'

"'I dunno whether you will or not until I see you try,' says the Captain. 'I've handled a Malay crew, which is worse than serpents, and I've mixed it up with most of the sc.u.m that sails the seven seas, but this blame snake's got me bluffed all right. He's three fathom long, as big around as the mainmast, and made up princ.i.p.ally of muscle and wickedness.'

"'Just watch me. Watch me!' says Merritt. 'I'll use my wonderful hypnotic power and you'll see the serpent crawl into the bag at my command, to be easily transported to this moral and elevating show for exhibition as an example of the power of mind over matter.'

"'All right, professor,' says the Captain. 'But if you'll take my advice you'll stow those sh.o.r.e-going togs and get into working rig before you tackle him.' Merritt was arrayed in all his finery, and if you'd ever seen him you'd know that that meant a lot, for when he was flush he could make Solomon in all his glory, or any other swell dresser look like a dirty deuce in a new deck. He had on a light suit with checks which were so loud they drowned the music of the orchestra, and a shirt which would make a summer sunset hide its head in disappointment. Patent leather shoes with yellow tops and a white plug hat with a black band around it completed his costume, except for a few specimens of yellow diamonds which adorned his shirt front and cuffs.

"Merritt snorted contemptuously at the suggestion and we started for the ship. When we got on board he made a little speech before he went into the hold, telling the sailors about his wonderful hypnotic power and how he would exercise it to charm the serpent which was preventing their worthy Captain from reaping the rewards of his arduous toil and his hardihood in having braved the perils of the vasty deep. The sailors listened and grinned, but the Captain was getting impatient and suggested that Merritt get the snake first and give his spiel afterward, so Merritt went down the ladder with the bag over his shoulder and we all rubbered down the hatchway to watch the capture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Merritt was quick enough to get a strangle hold around the snake's neck."_]

"I knew what he would try to do, for I had seen him work it before. The way to get one of those big snakes is to cover his head with a bag, and then he'll crawl in himself to get into the dark, which is a serpent's idea of safety. The more you prod 'em the faster they'll crawl, and that was the time when Merritt always made pa.s.ses with his hands and muttered gibberish to impress the spectators. He started in according to programme as soon as he located the snake, which was half hidden among a lot of casks. The snake carried out his part and struck at the opened bag which Merritt held out to him, but instead of sticking his head in he grabbed it with his teeth, and as Merritt held on he drew him back among the barrels and there was a pretty fight. Merritt was quick enough to get a strangle hold around the snake's neck and then it kept him busy keeping out of his coils. The Captain hadn't lied much about the size of the python--it was about thirty feet long--and Merritt didn't have time to use any incantation, although considerable forcible language floated up through the hatchway. They wiped the deck with each other for about twenty minutes, and Merritt had been b.u.mped against pretty nearly every cask in the hold before he finally succeeded in drawing the sack over the snake's head. Then it was easy, and in spite of his lack of breath the showman in Merritt a.s.serted itself. He put the sack on the floor, and with one foot on the neck of it he prodded the snake's body with the other while he made mysterious pa.s.ses with his hands until the tip of the tail disappeared. When the sack was securely tied up the python was hoisted on deck, and Merritt, his clothing torn and soiled with pitch and the miscellaneous oily and sticky things which made up the ship's cargo, climbed up after it.