A Son of the City Part 15

"It's the devil," said John, squirming ecstatically on his hard chair.

"There he is, in one corner where Punch can't see him."

Punch lifted a victim from one side of the stage to the other.

"That's one," he counted.

The red-faced, lively little imp returned the corpse to its original resting place. Some minutes of this comedy followed.

"Twenty-six," squawked the unsuspecting Punch in surprise, while the audience roared appreciatively. "Did I kill so many? h.e.l.lo, who are you?"

"I," came the preternaturally deep voice as Louise quaked at the make-belief reality of the scene, "am the devil!"

"Now they'll fight," breathed John, watching intently. "It'll be the bulliest fight of all, and they'll throw each other down and hit each other over the head forty-'leven times. Then the devil'll win."

But a puritanical mother had, on the tour preceding, written Professor O'Reilley, objecting to the devil's conquest of the unrepentant old reprobate, so that master of ventriloquism introduced a new character into the ancient tale, and the devil went the way of Punch's other victims.

"H-m-m," puzzled John with wrinkled brow. "This isn't the same--What's that?"

"Open," ordered Punch of the long, flat object which appeared beside the body of the devil.

"It's an aggilator," shrilled Louise as the mystery disclosed two terrific rows of teeth and a long, red throat.

"Shut," ordered Punch. The jaws closed with a snap.

"Isn't it peachy?" whispered John.

"Open," ordered Punch once more. Again the jaws swung slowly and impressively apart.

"Close," repeated Punch, as he stooped dangerously near the yawning cavern.

The jaws snapped within a thirty-second of an inch of the arch-villain's nose. Angered, Punch hit the beast with his little club, while the audience screamed in delight. Ensued a fight which changed rapidly to a pursuit back and forth over the bodies of Judy, the policeman, and the rest of the company. At last Punch tripped and the animal seized upon him and bore him, shrieking, below.

"Is that all?" asked Louise, as the little curtain descended.

"All?" John answered, as he glanced over the other delights promised by the blue advertis.e.m.e.nt. "All? Why it isn't but a third over!"

Two a.s.sistants turned impromptu stage hands and s.h.i.+fted the Punch and Judy cabinet to the rear of the stage. The professor stooped over a battered trunk at the side, and brought out two life-sized dolls with huge, staring eyes, and swinging arms and legs. He sat down on a chair at the center of the platform.

"These," he said as he balanced the manikins on his knees, "are my two little boys. They're usually very nice little fellows, but I'm afraid they've been shut up so long in that dark trunk that they're feeling a little angry. I'll have to see. Now [to the sandy-haired caricature on his right], tell the people what your name is. No? Then we'll have to ask your friend here. What's your name?"

"Sambo," mouthed the black-faced marionette.

"Gee!" whispered John, as he watched the professor's lips closely.

"How's he do it?"

"Now, tell all these nice little girls and boys how old you are."

"T-ten."

"Did you ever go to school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now tell that little girl with the pink hair ribbon who's sitting in the third row, what you learned yesterday."

"Ya-ya-ya," interrupted the younger member of the Peck family.

"Ya-ya-ya!"

"Why, George," admonished the ventriloquist. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, behaving in this way?"

"No, I ain't," protested George incorrigibly. "Ya-ya-ya, blackface!"

So it went for the s.p.a.ce of a good half-hour. Pretty poor stuff, it may seem now, oh, you grown-ups who have lost the magic eyes of childhood, but snickers and shouts and giggles filled the hall while the dialogue lasted. Finally the lay figures waxed so disputatious that Professor O'Reilley consigned them to the darkness of the trunk from which they came.

"Stay there until you behave yourselves," he scolded, as the groans grew more and more subdued in protest against the captivity.

"Wish I could do that," said John. "Couldn't I get teacher mad, talking at her from the blackboard?"

"Sh-sh," whispered Louise. "He's going to speak."

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We have with us today for the first exhibition in this part of the city, the most wonderful invention of the glorious age in which you are living. After the hall is darkened, I shall go down to the table where that lantern stands and throw upon the screen actual moving pictures taken from real life. You will see the landing of our brave troops upon the rock-bound sh.o.r.es of Cuba. You will witness a thrilling battle with Spanish insurrectos [the professor was getting his history a little mixed, but that mattered not a whit to his audience], and brave men will fall before your eyes in the charge up San Joon hill. I need not state that these pictures have been secured at an almost fabulous cost, for Professor T. J. O'Reilley always makes it a point to give his patrons the best of everything, regardless of expense.

The best of order must be kept while the hall is in darkness. Anyone creating a disturbance at that time will be instantly expelled."

Thus did the professor conclude his introduction of the feature which, later, was to drive him and his kind out of business.

A click, a sudden buzzing as if a giant swarm of bees were flying about in the center of the hall where the long, cylindrical gas tanks stood, and a six foot square of light flashed on the white curtain which had been lowered to the stage.

The pictures flickered and jumped a great deal, and at times streaks on the old film gave the idea that the boat loads of infantry were approaching the sh.o.r.e in a torrent of rain, but the figures moved, nevertheless, and unslung rifles, and formed into companies.

"The charge up the hill under fire," supplemented the operator. They had no t.i.tles for the motion pictures in those days.

Amid a steady whirring, flashes of smoke appeared from the thickets overhanging the sh.o.r.e. A soldier threw up his arms, another pitched headlong into the sand, and the Americans swept up the slope in a charge which brooked no obstacles. Little girls handclapped vigorously, while the boys pounded on the floor with their feet and gave vent to weird whistles of enthusiasm.

"And so San Joon was taken!"

"The hill wasn't on the water that way," John interrupted excitedly.

"I've got a book at home with maps and everything. Wasn't that way at all."

"Let's pretend it was," Louise replied philosophically.

The lights flashed on in the hall to dazzle the eyes of the audience. A chair squeaked. There was a sound of footsteps near the doorway.

"Keep your seats," cautioned Professor O'Reilley as he jumped up on the stage. "The drawing for prizes will now take place. Ryan," to his a.s.sistant, "bring them out on the stage as I call for them."

A babel arose. "Don't you wish you could win the skates, Jim?" "What'll you do if you get a ring?" "And there's dolls and doll carriages, too."

The showman raised an arm as a signal for silence. "Will some boy step up to draw the tickets from the hat?"