Side Show Studies Part 5

MAKING A STAR LION AND AN INTERRUPTED TEMPERANCE MEETING

"You were not in this part of the country when New York was in an uproar for two days over the escape of one of my lions," said the Proprietor to the Stranger as they joined the Press Agent. "I suppose that ninety per cent. of the people who remember it think that it was all a fake, but I can a.s.sure you that I put in the most strenuous forty-eight hours of my career while he was loose, and it pretty nearly decided me to give up the show business. It was my first experience at running an independent show, and after great persuasion I had induced my father to let me bring some boxing kangaroos, two young lions and Wallace, a fine big brute about fifteen years old, from our English establishment to the States.

Wallace was already a famous--or infamous--lion in England, where he had the score of three trainers to his credit. He had received the name of 'The Mankiller' over there, and they were rather relieved to have me get him out of the country.

"His last victim was a Frenchman, one of the best-known trainers in the business, and he went into the cage to subdue Wallace on a wager. He won, and a remarkable performance it was, but I won't take the time to tell you about that now. He made just one little mistake: his vanity got the better of him when he turned his back on the lion to bow to the audience after remaining in the cage for ten minutes. As I said, he won the bet, and it about paid the funeral expenses of what was left of him.

After that the only man who could go near Wallace was a half-breed American Indian from up near Cape Cod; Broncho Boccacio, he called himself. I don't know what the other half of him was, and I don't remember how he happened to be with our English show, but all sorts and conditions of men drift into the animal training business. At any rate, he was the only man who could do anything with Wallace, and that wasn't much. He would get into the cage and chase him around a bit and then jump out quick--always backward after seeing what happened to the Frenchman. I brought him along to take especial charge of the brute. It took a couple of days to get the animals through the customs, and in the meantime I cast about for quarters and finally rented a stable on Eighteenth Street to keep them in until I should secure an engagement."

He took a pencil from his pocket and drew a plan on the white table top.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"There was a loose lion downstairs and a nurse and two children in the loft."_]

"The stable was arranged in this way: here in the front was the carriage house with these narrow stairs at the side leading up to the loft. On each side of the door was a window facing on the street, and back of the carriage room was the stable proper--two stalls and a loose-box. On one side of the stable was a saloon and on the other a carpenter shop, so I didn't expect much complaint from my neighbors, as my men patronized one, while I ordered the carpenter to build a traveling cage for Wallace which would slide on wheels, as our English cages were too heavy to handle in a country where labor is as high as it is here. I moved the lions up to the stable to let them rest a bit after the voyage and started to look for an engagement. It was a hard row to hoe, as I was not known in this country, and the best I could do was a booking at a dime museum for a month, and I had to take a lowish price at that, but I ordered a big nine sheet poster and trusted to luck to make more out of them later.

"The lions were in three cages in the stable, and in one of the stalls I had a trotting horse which had been purchased for my brother in England, and which I kept there until I should have an opportunity to s.h.i.+p it to the other side. The kangaroos were in the loft, and a couple of days after they were all settled my two little girls came over from the hotel with me one morning and went up there with the nurse to play with them while I went into the carpenter shop next door to settle for the new cage, which had just been delivered. Broncho, as soon as he struck his native soil, had discovered a camp of other Indians on the Bowery and spent most of his time in their encampment, leaving a c.o.c.kney Englishman in charge of the lions and the horse. I intended to wait until he arrived before s.h.i.+fting Wallace to the new cage, but the Englishman thought he would show his cleverness and attempted to do it alone without waiting for us. He threw a piece of meat into the new cage and then rolled it up to the old one, and when the doors were opposite each other he opened them. Of course Wallace made a spring for the meat in the new cage, but he struck the edge of the door, and as the c.o.c.kney had neglected to block the wheels the cage rolled away and the keeper gave a yell and bolted for the stairs. There was a loose lion downstairs--and a bad one at that--and the nurse and two children in the loft.

"The first I knew of it was from the nurse, who had grabbed the children and stood with them in the door which had been used to pa.s.s the hay in, yelling 'Fire!' and 'Murder!' but I knew that there was h.e.l.l to pay as soon as I reached the street, by the sound which came from the stable.

We got a ladder from the carpenter shop and hustled the nurse and children down to the street, and then I went up to the loft, while the nurse and the c.o.c.kney held the small door from the stable to the street, which could not be fastened from the outside until the carpenter spiked some plank over it.

"A look into the stable convinced me that I did not want to go down the stairs, for with one blow Wallace had converted a thousand-dollar trotting horse into two dollars' worth of lion meat, and he was crouched on the body, which he had dragged from the stall, clawing at its throat and drinking the blood. The place looked like a shambles, and the growls which came from Wallace as the other lions threw themselves against the bars of their cages in their efforts to get out and join in the feast were redoubled when he caught sight of my head through the trap-door. I slammed it down and drew the kangaroo cage on top of it and then went down to the street to see that the windows and doors were securely boarded up. A great crowd was gathering and I was afraid that the police would shoot the brute, for I saw the possibilities of an advertis.e.m.e.nt which would more than pay for the expensive meal which Wallace was making from the trotting horse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"His vanity got the better of him when he turned his back on the lion, to bow to the audience."_]

"Just as I reached the street, Broncho strolled up. As I said, he was a queer-looking guy; his skin was copper-colored and he had piercing black eyes and long, fuzzy black hair which fell down to his shoulders. His nose was hooked and something about his face always reminded me of a bird of prey. He was only a half-breed, but when I told him what had occurred he was all Indian and he drew a long knife and started for the c.o.c.kney, who gave only one look at the expression on Broncho's face and then started for Harlem, touching only the high spots until he was quite out of sight. Broncho didn't chase him; he just looked after him with a smile on his face, glad to see him disappear, as there had been more or less bad blood between them for a long time. Then he came to me and laughed at the idea of danger and offered to go into the stable and put Wallace back in the cage. I knew that it would be impossible until the lion had gorged himself on horse meat, and now that the damage was done I was in no hurry to allay the excitement until the police and reporters arrived. We didn't have to wait long, for the crowd had grown until the street was blocked, and, of course, the reporters asked more than a thousand questions. When I had worked the sensation up pretty well I consented to let Broncho take his training rod and go down, and I went with him carrying a club and a pitchfork. Things commenced to happen right away, for Wallace didn't wait for the call of time, but sailed right into us, and when I saw that he was getting the better of Broncho I made a bluff at going back to the carca.s.s of the horse. Wallace bounded back to protect it and crouched on it, snarling viciously, but the delay gave me a chance to help Broncho up the stairway. There was not enough of his trousers left to wad a gun, and while I was bandaging up a deep claw wound in his thigh that advertis.e.m.e.nt seemed less and less important to me, and I would have given a good deal to have Wallace safely behind the bars of his cage again. He was contracted for four weeks anyway, and it takes a pretty big sensation to be remembered for more than thirty days in New York.

"Well, we fussed about all day, trying to figure out some way to get the beggar back in his cage, and I got an earache listening to advice from people who had never seen a lion, but who considered themselves experts.

At sunset Wallace still held the fort and the streets were blocked in all directions, for the afternoon papers were out with extras with scare-heads. The boards over the windows made the interior of the stable so dark that no one could see into it, but the roars which came from it gave the spectators all the thrills they were ent.i.tled to and caused a stampede every few minutes. We tried to drive Wallace into the cage with a stream of water from the fire plug, but he only shook his head and growled at it, so we gave it up and waited for daylight. There were about forty policemen and a crowd of reporters about the place all night, and I was getting nervous for fear some fool would shoot the lion, whose value was increasing every minute, so I kept awake and did a heap of thinking.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Broncho was only a half-breed."_]

"I knew that Wallace would fight for his 'kill' as long as any of the meat was left, so we rigged up a tackle to try and draw the carca.s.s out.

We were all ready at daylight and the crowd was bigger than ever. Say, if you want to count the idle people in New York just get up a free show at any hour of the day or night and they will all come. There must have been over a thousand loafing about the street all night. We were just getting ready to make a try for the horse when the idlers outside gave a cheer, and I saw an express wagon loaded with nets and ropes and all sorts of animal catching stuff drive up. Tody Hamilton, Barnum's press agent, had caught on to the possibilities of an advertis.e.m.e.nt, and sent to the winter quarters at Bridgeport for some of their animal men to come down and capture a loose lion. They supposed it was in Central Park, and when they found it was in a stable the job looked easy to them. One of them, a man named McDonald, had been with our English show, and when he heard that it was Wallace they were to tackle his enthusiasm seemed to melt. He told the others a few anecdotes of the lion, and two of them went to find the c.o.c.kney, I guess, for we never saw them again.

"We managed to throw a slip noose around the carca.s.s from the stairs, and when we pa.s.sed the end of the rope out of the window there must have been five hundred men pulling on it from the way that horse's body slid across the floor. The four of us stood around the trap-door to beat Wallace back, and when he realized that he was losing his prey it kept us busy.

"Say, a dead horse seems to have more legs than a centipede when you try to drag it through a narrow s.p.a.ce, and they all stick out in different directions. Of course, this one stuck and then there was more trouble, for when I took an axe to dismember it, a cop threatened to arrest me for cutting up a horse in the city limits. It took three hours to satisfy the red-tape requirements and get a permit from the Board of Health, and then I had a long, sickening job, for we had to haul up what was left of the poor beast in fragments, and all the time Wallace was snapping at them or rus.h.i.+ng at us. We gave him several nasty cracks over the snout, the only place where a lion seems to be sensitive to pain, but it only made him uglier than ever and I knew that there was a pretty fight ahead of us. It was a case of 'Perdicaris alive or Raisouli dead' with me, for the police were getting impatient, and I knew they would shoot him if we did not get him caged before night.

"We drew lots to see who should be the first to go down, and I think that McDonald stacked the straws, for Broncho won--or lost--I was second, the other Barnum man third and McDonald last; but he made good after we got down there, and it was what the President would have called a 'crowded hour.' If Wallace hadn't been full of horse meat, which made him a trifle slow, I think he would have chased the bunch of us out, and as it was he gave us all we wanted to do. We used blank cartridges, Roman candles, training rods and whips, and I learned afterward that the crowd outside thought we were all being torn to pieces, but we finally conquered and it was a singed and battered lion which jumped back into the den and gave me a chance to slam the door. The noise of the clicking lock sounded good to me, and I went up the stairs with a lighter heart, in spite of tattered clothes and a scratched hand and bruised body. I knew that I had a small fortune in the beast, but I nearly cried when I went into the saloon to freshen up, and the first thing I saw was the poster with the announcement that Wallace would be shown at the dime museum. I knew that it would make the reporters, who had been writing columns of s.p.a.ce, suspect that it was all a fake and prearranged. The manager was afraid that I would renege on my contract after all the free advertising, but he didn't know me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"We didn't have any regular snake charmer, but Merritt made himself up for a Hindoo fakir."_]

"Sure enough, the reporters came for me in a body while I was still tired and dirty from the fight and worn out with anxiety and loss of sleep. They accused me of having put up a job on them, but I guess the sight of my condition convinced them of my sincerity, for only one paper even hinted at any crookedness, and that proved the best advertis.e.m.e.nt in the whole business.

"It was the _Sun_ which came out in an article about Wallace, saying that he was toothless and decrepit from old age, and that there had never been the slightest danger from him. If the reporter who wrote it had gone into the stable with us, I don't think he would have written the article. I did my own announcing in those days and I always started off with the announcement, 'Ladies and gentlemen! If you see it in the _Sun_, it's so, and the _Sun_ says that Wallace is played out and toothless from old age.' Then I would make a move to the front of the cage, and Wallace, who had a special hatred for me, would spring at the bars and show as pretty a set of fangs as you would wish to see and I was always sure of a laugh.

"Well, I showed Wallace in New York and other cities for thirty straight weeks and got back the value of that trotter a good many times over,"

continued the Proprietor as he rose from the table. "His name is one to conjure with, even yet, and nearly every lion which is exhibited in the side shows at the county fairs is billed as 'Wallace, the Untamable!'

The original Wallace is still alive and at our English breeding establishment." He said good-night and left the table, the Press Agent looking regretfully after him.

"That's just like the boss," he complained as he watched the retreating figure. "He takes the center of the stage until he has told his story, and when my turn comes to get in the limelight he does the disappearing act. That was a pretty good story, but talking of escapes, I can tell you about an escape that is worth talking about. It happened when a guy named Merritt and myself were running a snake show next to a camp meeting down on the Jersey coast. We didn't have any regular snake charmer, but we bought a lot of wrigglers from a dealer down on the Bowery and Merritt made himself up for a Hindoo fakir. He would get into the cage with them and those snakes would wrap themselves about him from his head to his toes and it was an awe-inspiring sight. He taught them to stand up on their tails and dance while he played on a tin whistle and to do other pretty little tricks, but the great and original stunt was what he called the 'Interminable Snake,' when one would grab the biggest snake's tail in his mouth, another would fasten onto him, and so on until the whole blame lot looked like one big serpent. Say, those snakes got so stuck on that game that they would do it for sport without the word of command. Whenever one started to move around the cage another would grab his tail, and the first thing you knew the whole bunch was going around in a string and the sight of it was enough to make a man swear off for a year.

"We were doing a fine business until a temperance lecturer set up a show a little way off, and that cut into us so that there was nothing much doing. The crowd would walk right past the entrance to our 'Highly Moral and Instructive Exhibition,' and go on to listen to the temperance guy telling them about the evils of drink, as ill.u.s.trated by the horrible living examples which he had upon the platform. You see that was a free show, while ours cost a quarter--and cheap at the price.

"One afternoon after I had cracked my voice trying to draw the crowd without landing one of 'em, Merritt comes to me, and as we saw the crowd pouring in to the temperance show, we looked at each other and shook our heads in sorrow.

"'Jim,' says Merritt, 'that guy down there has got you skinned to death on the ballyhoo, and it's up to you to go over there and get next to the attraction and see if we can't cop it out for our show. I hate to ask it of you,' says he, 'knowing your views on the temperance question, but business is business and this ain't no time for sentiment.' It went against the grain, but I knew it must be done, so I went down to the lecture. I wasn't wise to the game, but I was anxious not to miss a trick, so I went right up to the front, and the first thing I knew I was seated on the mourners' bench, right under the platform. As soon as the lecturer came on I piped him for a guy that used to pull teeth on the Bowery with a bra.s.s band accompaniment and a gasoline torch, and I remembered that at that time he could punish more booze than any man I ever knew. He had the gift of gab all right, and he had picked up a couple of panhandlers for horrible examples and they looked the part.

If either one of them had ever drawn a sober breath in twenty years he should have sued his face for libel, and they looked as if they had been towed behind a trolley car from the Battery to Fort George.

"Well, the ex-jaw carpenter cut loose in good form, and he soon had every one worked up, telling the horrible things which alcohol did to your interior lining, and giving a description of the menagerie which a man sees when he has the jim-jams, which would have done credit to the boss lecturer in there." He pointed with his thumb to the Arena, and the alert waiter, taking it for a signal, refilled the gla.s.ses.

"He did it so well that he sort of had me going, and I was beginning to think that possibly I was taking a trifle too much," continued the Press Agent, as he sampled the fresh drink. "I was giving the matter serious thought, when my attention was attracted by one of the panhandlers who was nudging his partner.

"'Bill,' says he, 'tell the old man to put on full steam ahead, for I'm backsliding and need encouragement. I'm afraid I've got 'em again. Look there!' Bill looks down the aisle and gets uneasy, too.

"'Hank,' says he, 'I've got 'em, likewise, only that ain't my usual kind of snake, coz he ain't got no plug hat with a red flannel band on it; but it's me for the bromide and the simple life.'

"'It's this d.a.m.n Jersey whiskey that's changed 'em,' answers Bill. 'Mine always has gorillas ridin' 'em.' Well, I looked around and I would have been scared myself if I hadn't recognized our own bunch of snakes, each one of 'em with the tail of the snake in front of him in his mouth. Old 'Limber Larry'--we called him that on account of his habit of going to sleep curled up in a true lover's knot--was in the lead, and behind him came about half a mile of snakes.

"They were festooning themselves up the aisle, coming slow, because there were a couple of them which could not move very fast, and when the gait got too lively they used to bite their leaders' tails. Old Larry was raising his head and looking around every few feet, and just when the lecturer had reached the most thrilling part of his 'Ten Nights in a Barroom' spiel he caught Larry's eye and the meeting adjourned, _sine die_, right there. You couldn't see him for dust as he broke for the nearest 'speakeasy,' and the two panhandlers were hanging on to his coat tails.

"Just then Merritt comes in looking worried, for he had gone to sleep and let 'em get away from him, but when he sees 'em he takes his tin whistle out of his pocket and goes back to the show, tooting it like a blasted Pied Piper, the snakes following along as meek as Mary's little lamb, and most of the audience goes with him at a quarter per."

"Did business improve?" asked the Stranger.

"Improve? Why, my boy, after we put that temperance show out of business we just turned 'em away for three months. Not only did we do a good business, but the hotel people put us on the free list at the bar, because Merritt used to take 'em down in 'Interminable Snake' formation for a dip in the ocean every morning, and the hotel press agent wrote it up as the daily appearance of the gigantic sea serpent."

KALSOMINING AN ELEPHANT

KALSOMINING AN ELEPHANT

A delegation from the National a.s.sociation of Press Agents which was holding its annual meeting in the interests of the Furtherance of Truth and the Elevation of the Show Business had left the meeting place in New York, and after inspecting the various moral and entertaining performances at Coney Island was gathered about one of the white-topped tables near the Dreamland tower. Colonel Tody Hamilton, prince of press agents, master of a picturesque vocabulary, inventor of superlatives in the English language and champion of veracity, pointed laughingly toward the Arena, where the Proprietor of the trained animal exhibition was instructing a new barker how to make the most out of a trick of one of the elephants which was being used for ballyhoo purposes in front of the entrance to his show.

"Listen to him, gentlemen, and you will be convinced that he is eligible to members.h.i.+p in our truth-loving fraternity," he remarked admiringly.

The ungainly pachyderm was standing on its hind legs, trumpeting through its upraised trunk a protest against the prodding of the sharp goad which was forcing it to walk backward in that absurd position. The voice of the Proprietor, who was using a megaphone, came to them distinctly as he invited the people to look at "One of the greatest triumphs of the animal trainer's art; something which has never been exhibited in any country--an elephant WALKING UPON ITS HIND LEGS, BACKWARD!"

The speech caught and held the attention of the crowd, and when the elephant was allowed to rejoin its companions and the three great beasts entered the building in single file, Tom grasping Roger's tail in his trunk and Alice following suit with the caudal appendage of Tom, a goodly number stepped up to the ticket booth and paid their entrance money. The Colonel and his a.s.sociates, whose business had made them familiar with elephants, smiled at the credulity of the crowd, but acknowledged the Proprietor's skill in attracting an audience.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Sam Watson confessed the whole thing."_]