Side Show Studies Part 2

The Prima Donna laughed good-naturedly as he helped to brush the sawdust and litter from her dress and tactfully drew her away, and Jocko quieted down and implored her to return; but she was accustomed to gentler wooing, and refused to put her dainty gown again in jeopardy.

"Jocko gave quite a performance to-night," said the Proprietor as he joined the Press Agent and the Stranger at the table, after the show.

"That baboon is crazy about women; but he hasn't the discrimination of Consul, the most intelligent monkey that ever lived. You may remember that he was never quiet in his cage, but if a specially well-dressed woman stopped in front of it he played entirely to her and when she moved away his eyes followed her as long as she was in sight."

"There will never be another like Consul," said the Press Agent, shaking his head sadly. "He made my job a sinecure, for he was good for a column any day and a full page on Sundays."

"Never until the Missing Link is discovered," replied the Proprietor. "I don't believe a more human monkey will ever be found, and I attribute his wonderful intelligence to the fact that he a.s.sociated entirely with human beings, almost from the day of his birth. I got him from the captain of a tramp steamer which traded to the West Coast, and I paid a goodish bit of money for him too. I have never dared to tell his early history as it was told to me, for fear I should be laughed at for a liar; but stranger things happen in the animal business than ever get into print, and if I dared risk my reputation by telling the things which actually occur in a menagerie, I should never need a Press Agent; but a plausible lie is accepted where a truth which sounds improbable is turned down."

The Press Agent looked at him reproachfully, but agreed with the proposition.

"Do you know, I have found that to be true when I have visited the newspaper offices," he said. "I have actually had to embroider some of the accounts of things which have happened here."

"I suspected it, for I didn't recognize some of the stories when I saw them in print," answered the Proprietor, smiling at him approvingly. He consented to tell the history of Consul, the famous chimpanzee, when the Stranger expressed his entire credulity and the Press Agent a.s.sumed an encouraging and sympathetic att.i.tude.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Jocko, giving a howl of rage, danced madly up and down."_]

"Of course, I have to take the s.h.i.+p captain's word for what happened before I bought him, but from the way the chimp developed and the intelligence he displayed after he came into my possession, I am prepared to believe it. He told me that he got him from the natives at the mouth of a small river on the West Coast, where he anch.o.r.ed his steamer to trade. They came off about the s.h.i.+p in their canoes, but he did not care for the rubber and ivory they had to offer and he was about to hoist anchor when one of them, who was in a small canoe with a woman, motioned to him to stop. The woman was crouched up in the stern, nursing what the captain thought was a baby, but when the man dragged it away from her, in spite of her voluble protest, he saw that it was a small chimpanzee. The man seemed desperately anxious to trade--and I imagine the captain's trade goods were not the sort to meet the entire approval of the missionaries--so that a bargain was concluded and the woman's grief allayed by a generous share of the purchase price. As nearly as he could make out, she had found the little thing in the jungle when it was only a few days old and had reared it in place of a baby which had just died. She was a low type of woman, even for an African savage, but the maternal instinct was strong enough to make her grieve for little Consul, as the captain christened him. The monkey grieved over the separation, too, but sailors make much of animals and he soon became reconciled to it.

"Thousands of people saw him after I purchased him, and you can judge of the reputation he attained when I tell you that I was getting fifteen hundred dollars a week for him in Berlin when he died, and he was booked for the entire season at that price. People had seen him eat with a knife and fork, smoke a cigar, use a typewriter and do all of the stunts which simply aped humanity, but you had to live with the little beast to appreciate how intensely human he was. Everybody connected with the show loved him, and when I wanted to find any one of the employees who was off duty, or not in his proper place, I always went first to Consul's cage and I was pretty sure to locate him. That monkey was never still, and the things he would do and the pranks he would play off his own bat were more amusing than any of the things he had been taught.

"When he was in company he was as well mannered as most men, but, of course, he had his prejudices and had to be watched. His special aversion was a negro, which is strange when you consider his early a.s.sociations, and if one came around when he was loose he was apt to attack him. We had to consider that in traveling, for Consul always stopped at the hotels with his trainer and sat about the lobbies, smoking his cigar like any other guest, but if there were negro servants about, we had to be very careful not to let them come near him.

"He had the reasoning power of a child of ten years old; he was patient when anything was wrong and we had to do disagreeable things to him, appreciating that it was for his benefit. Only once did we have to use force, when it was necessary to pull a tooth, and I am glad it wasn't oftener, for it took seven men to control him and they thought they had done a day's work when we finished. The last time he went abroad he was the life of the s.h.i.+p, but he pretty nearly killed himself. The doctor prescribed a cough medicine for him and Consul liked it so well that he got up in the night, after his trainer had gone to sleep, opened the valise in which it was kept and emptied the bottle. I guess there must have been laudanum in it, for they had to work over him the rest of the night to save him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"All of his savage instincts were aroused."_]

"He would walk the deck with the lady pa.s.sengers, who made a great deal of him, and when the customary concert was given, nothing would do but that he must perform and then pa.s.s the plate for the collection. He was in evening dress and behaved like a perfect gentleman, and the collection was a large one. It was heaped on the plate, and he was just about to present it to the captain when Booker Was.h.i.+ngton stepped forward to make a contribution. The money for the Seaman's Home went flying to the four corners of the salon and the trainer had a difficult time in persuading Consul to retire without tearing the clothes off of the man whose only offense was his color. This was Consul's last voyage, for he contracted pleurisy and died in Berlin, and I felt worse over his death than I did over the burning of my whole menagerie in Baltimore a few years ago."

"Have you found that early a.s.sociation with human beings makes the other animals easier to train?" asked the Stranger, and the Proprietor shook his head.

"No; I would rather train one taken in the jungle than an animal born in captivity. They do raise the pumas in South America and have them about the houses as we do cats; but I wouldn't trust one of 'em. And as for the bigger cats, the lions and tigers, there is no such thing as taming them. They may be trained to do certain things, but they are never trustworthy. We had a queer ill.u.s.tration of that when I was traveling with a caravan circus in France. One of the lionesses had a litter of three cubs, and in the excitement of the moving and strange surroundings, she killed two of them. We took the other one away and the woman who cooked for us volunteered to raise it. She became very much attached to it and developed the theory that she could overcome its savage instincts by diet, and for a time it looked as if she were right.

The beast was with her for about two years and grew to a fine animal, but she never let him taste raw food. One day, when he was comfortably lying before the stove, she pushed him with her foot to get him out of the way and he resented it. Whether it was that alone, or whether the odor of meat which she was about to cook appealed to him, I don't know; but all of his savage instincts were aroused and when we secured him we found that he had taken most of her scalp off."

"It's funny how some people are always looking for a chance to get damages," said the Press Agent, settling himself comfortably in his chair. "We had a case of it when Merritt and I were running a dime museum out West. The freaks all lived together at a large boarding house and one morning, when they reported for duty, the 'Tattooed Lady' was missing. It was before the days when they were so common and we had spent a lot of money to have her decorated and made her our star attraction. Of course, none of the tattooing was visible when she was in street costume, but when she sat on the platform dressed in low neck and short skirts the lecturer had something to talk about, for the menagerie pictured on her was a thing of beauty, and the few choice texts like, 'Be good and you will be happy,' which were scattered in between the animals, were highly moral and elevating, and that was one of the strong points of our show. Merritt used to spread himself when he was telling how she was s.h.i.+pwrecked on a desert island and held captive by the cruel cannibals, whose high priests spared her from the menu to tattoo her with the symbols of their heathenish wors.h.i.+p. It gave him a great chance to come in strong on the moral part, when he explained about the texts and told how they were added after the cannibals had been converted to red flannel s.h.i.+rts, silk hats and a vegetable diet, by the missionaries, and I have seen ancient maiden ladies moved to tears by his recital. So when he had to give his lecture without her, he got mixed up and called attention to the marvelous growth of hair on the face of the 'Circa.s.sian Beauty,' thinking she was the 'Bearded Lady,' and nearly pulled the ears off of the 'Dog Faced Boy,' trying to explain that he was 'The Man With The Rubber Skin.' Of course, that made trouble among the freaks, who are a mighty touchy lot anyway, and I have noticed that trouble always comes in bunches in the show business, so I wasn't surprised when a husky guy that looked like a farmer came in with blood in his eye and asked for the manager. I looked around for Merritt, but he had gone around the corner to get something to drown his sorrow, so I slipped a piece of lead pipe under my coat and acknowledged the soft impeachment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"A 'Tattooed Lady,' and she's all covered with picters."_]

"'Look'ee here, wot kinder a skin game be youse fellers runnin' here?'

says the guy, and I took a good grip on the lead pipe and tried to turn away wrath by a soft answer, and quoting from our advertis.e.m.e.nt that it was a highly moral and intellectual entertainment.

"'Not by a dern sight, it ain't,' says he. 'It's a blasted man-trap to ketch the unwary, an' I'll have the law on ye an' make yer pay fer trifling with my young affections.' I have had some pretty tough things said to me in my day, but that was about the worst ever, and pretty nearly took my breath away, but he went right on.

"'I deliver milk to that boardin' house down the street an' I see a likely lookin' gal there lately an' I wanted some one to help milk an'

look after the house, so I asks her to marry me. She says she will, so we hitched up an' I never knew she was one o' yer dern freaks until it was too late. She says she's a "Tattooed Lady," an' she's all covered with picters.'

"'Well, what's the matter with 'em?' says I. 'Aren't they good pictures?'

"'Good enough,' says he, 'for them as likes 'em; but I don't hanker after no decorations o' that kind an', b'gosh, I'll make yer pay fer palmin' off a damaged article on me. She's all over snakes an' other beasts an' it makes me sick ter my stummick every time I thinks of 'em.'

I tried to convince him that we were not responsible and that it was his wife's duty to have informed him.

"'That's what I told her, dod gast her! But she says it's my own fault if I didn't know she was a "Tattooed Lady," because I never asked her, an' blamed if she isn't proud o' them picters, too.'"

"How did you settle it--did he get damages?" asked the Stranger.

"Damages!" exclaimed the Press Agent as he wiped the foam from his moustache. "Why, Merritt came in, and when he heard the guy's kick he lit right into him.

"'Blame your skin!' he yelled. 'I've a good mind to have you arrested for stealing the pictures from my art gallery. I have a claim on 'em, for I paid for the liquor to keep a sailor drunk for six weeks while he was doing that job.' The Rube got onto the fact that she was valuable, so they adjourned to a saloon to talk it over."

"With what result?" asked the Proprietor, as he rose from the table.

"Well, Merritt got her back on the platform, the Rube sold his farm, and within six weeks he was wearing more yellow diamonds and throwing a bigger chest than the husband of a grand opera prima donna."

FEEDING THE SERPENTS AND A GRAND TRANSFORMATION

FEEDING THE SERPENTS AND A GRAND TRANSFORMATION

The animals had received their evening meal when the Proprietor came from the Arena and joined the Stranger and the Press Agent at the table outside.

"I can never understand the interest people take in seeing the carnivorous animals fed; it is no more than giving a bone to a dog," he said, as he took his seat. "And yet it is one of the best drawing features of the show, and the same people remain night after night to see the meat poked into the cages. If it were not for the prohibition of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals I could give a feeding exhibition which would be novel and interesting, for comparatively few people have ever seen a snake eat.

"It is because a snake will not eat unless it kills its own food," he continued in answer to a question from the Stranger. "Snakes are more particular feeders than any other animals, and they will not touch anything which is not alive when it is brought to them. This is the night for feeding them, and if you care to remain until the crowd has gone you can see how it is done. Long as I have been in the business, I learn something new every day, and I never saw a cobra fed artificially until last week, when Brandu, my Hindoo snake charmer, received one direct from India. It seems that they are cannibal snakes and live upon their own kind in India, but that would be too expensive a diet here, and he forces feed down its throat."

The thousands of incandescent lights on the Dreamland tower went out--the signal that the barkers might cease from barking and the spielers spiel no more--until the morrow brought its fresh crowd of amus.e.m.e.nt seekers, and the Proprietor led the way into the Arena. Brandu and his two native a.s.sistants were carrying the boxes which contained the snakes into the big exhibition cage, and, when the three men joined them, the weirdness of the surroundings made a profound impression upon the Stranger. All of the lights in the Arena were extinguished, with the exception of the small cl.u.s.ter directly over their heads, and pairs of luminous spots from the great semicircle of cages at the outer edge of the building reminded him that the human beings in the cage were not the only interested spectators of the proceedings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"A procession of sandwich men."_]

The a.s.sistants carefully removed the great boas and pythons from the boxes, laying them on the floor, where they crawled lazily about, their delicate forked tongues vibrating like streaks of red flame, while Brandu removed a slat from a crate of rabbits and put a half-dozen of them on the floor. The little animals had no instinctive fear of the serpents, for they hopped about among them and over their wriggling bodies unconcernedly, but the snakes were hungry after a fast of two weeks and they wasted no time in getting to the business before them.

The proceeding was the same in each case. A serpent would crawl up to the rabbit and place its nose, at which the little furry beast would sniff curiously, close to that of its prospective supper. The red forked tongue would pa.s.s rapidly over its face and the rabbit made no attempt to move. Whether it was the effect of some anaesthetic quality in the breath of the snake or the traditional charm of the serpent, it was hard to say, but the rabbit made no move to escape. Slowly but surely it yielded to the fascination of the snake, the large transparent ears dropped to the side of the head and the body muscles relaxed until the tickling of the serpent's tongue caused no reflex movement of the paws.

The snake then carefully withdrew its head until the slim neck was in the form of a letter S, and when it again straightened out it was with the force of a released steel spring and the aim of the flat head was unerring. The stroke was so rapid that it was difficult for the eye to follow and the rabbit never knew what happened, for its body made a quick circle in the air and in less than a second all that was to be seen was one small paw protruding from the coiled body which had brought it a quick and merciful death. The jaws of the serpent have seized it by the snout and thrown it back into its coils and the first pressure kills it, although the ever tightening embrace continues until the bones are crushed within the unbroken skin, so that it can be easily swallowed.

It is not swallowing in the ordinary sense of the word, for the snakes pull themselves over the rabbits as a glove is pulled over the finger, and the progress to the stomach can be watched through the length of the snake's neck. The snakes which were too small to manage a rabbit were fed on white rats and mice, but the process was the same in each case, except that the Hindoos held the rodents by their tails until the snakes had hypnotized them.

"I suppose that this seems cruel to people because the rabbits are such harmless little beasts," said the Proprietor as the last bit of fur disappeared. "To my mind it is not half so cruel as hunting hares with guns and dogs, for death from the snake's blow is as quick and painless as that from a bullet, and there are no maimed and wounded animals to drag themselves away to lingering deaths in hiding. But now I will show you something which has never been known in this country."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Brought the head of the cobra close to his face."_]

One of the natives brought out a curiously woven circular basket which he handled with great care, and setting it in the middle of the cage retired to a respectful distance. Brandu crouched on the floor beside it, and, although the performance was not accompanied by the weird Oriental music which signaled the public appearances of the snake charmer, the tense expression of his face and the uncanniness of the surroundings made it sufficiently impressive, for he was about to handle the cobra de capello, the most venomous snake in all the great collection. He wasted no time in the pantomime and incantation of the ring performance, but quickly threw off the cover, and when the hooded head arose swaying above the edge of the basket, he started a low whistling and pa.s.sed his slim brown hands with lightning rapidity above it. He was absolutely fearless, but the task before him demanded the concentration of all his thoughts and he seemed unconscious of the startling interruption of a fight between two of the lions, and the shouts and pistol-shots of the keepers who separated them.

He never removed his gaze from the head of the serpent and his hands moved so rapidly that they were almost invisible until, quicker than a snake could strike, one of them darted down and caught the slim neck behind the distended hood. He gave a sharp exclamation of triumph and sprang to his feet, the cobra coiling its body about his bare brown arm and giving every indication of rage.

"I am always glad when that part of the performance is over," said the Proprietor with a sigh of relief. "Of course, it is all in the day's work with Brandu and he has done it thousands of times, but some day he will be a fraction of a second too slow and then--well, I shall have to get another snake charmer. Watch him now and you will see something which only the men of his caste can do."