Upon a fence across the way was posted a "twenty-four sheet block stand," and along the top, in big red letters, it read:
"_H. Wellington Sheldon Presents_"
Then followed the names of a half dozen famous operatic stars.
Bat Scranton sat regarding it silently for a long time; but after he had placed himself behind his third big cigar he joined in the talk.
"In fifteen years dubbing about this great and glorious," said he, "I never run across a smoother piece of goods than old Cap. Sheldon. To see him, now, in his plug hat, frock coat and white English whiskers, you"d spot him as the main squeeze in a prosperous bank. He"s doing the Frohman stunt, too," and Bat nodded toward the poster, "and he handles it with exceeding grace. When I see him after the curtain falls upon a bunch of Verdi or Wagner stuff, come out and bow his thanks to a house full of the town"s swellest, and throw out a little spiel with an aristocratic accent, I always think of the time when I first met him.
"Were any of you ever in Langtry, Ohio? Well, never take a chance on it if there is anywhere else to go. It"s a tank town with a community of seven hundred of the tightest wads that ever sunk a dollar into the toe of a sock. There was a fair going on in the place, and I blew in there one September day; my turn just then was taking orders for crayon portraits of rural gentlemen with h.o.r.n.y hands and plenty of chin fringe.
I figure it out that about sixty per cent. of the parlors in the middle west are adorned with one or more of these works of art, but Langtry, Ohio, would not listen to the proposition for a moment; as soon as they discovered that I wasn"t giving the stuff away they sort of lost interest in me and mine; so I began to study the time-table and kick off the preliminary dust of the burg, preparatory to seeking a new base of operations.
"As I made my way to the station I caught my first glimpse of Cap.
Sheldon. He had a satchel hanging from around his neck and was winsomely wrapping ten dollar notes up with small cylinders of soap and offering to sell them at one dollar a throw.
""How are they going," says I.
""Not at all," says he. "There"s nothing to it that I can see. The breed and seed of Solomon himself must have camped down in this section; they are the wisest lot I ever saw herd together. Instead of chewing straws and leaning over fences after the customary and natural manner of ruminates, they pike around with a calm, cold-blooded sagacity that is truly awesome. It"s me to pull out as soon as I can draw expenses."
"The next time Cap. dawned upon my vision was a year afterward, down in Georgia. He was doing the ballyho oration in front of a side wall circus in a mellifluous style that was just dragging the tar heels up to the entrance.
""It"s a little better than the Ohio gag," says he, "but I"ve seen better, at that. I had a good paying faro outfit in Cincinnati since I met you, but the police got sore because I wouldn"t cut the takings in what they considered the right place, so they closed me up."
"During the next five years I met Cap. in every section of the country, and handling various propositions. In San Francisco I caught him in the act of selling toy balloons on a street corner; in Chicago he was disposing of old line life insurance with considerable effect; at a county fair, somewhere in Iowa, I ran across him as he gracefully manipulated the sh.e.l.ls.
"But Cap. did not break permanently into the show business until he coupled up with the McClintock in Milwaukee. Mac was an Irish Presbyterian, and was proud of it; he came out of the Black North and was the most acute harp, mentally, that I had ever had anything to do with. The Chosen People are not noted for commercial density; but a Jew could enter Mac"s presence attired in the height of fashion and leave it with only his shoe strings and a hazy recollection as to how the thing was done.
"Now, when a team like Cap. and Mac took to pulling together, there just naturally had to be something doing. They began with a small show under canvas, and their main card was a twenty-foot boa-constrictor, which they billed as "Mighty Mardo." Then they had a boy with three legs, one of which they neglected to state was made of wood; also a blushing damsel with excess embonpoint to the extent of four hundred pounds. With this outfit they campaigned for one season; in the fall they bought a museum in St. Louis and settled themselves as impresarios.
"Now, in my numerous meetings with Cap. I had never thought to ask his name, so when I saw an "ad" in the _Clipper_ stating that Sheldon & McClintock was in need of a good full-toned lecturer that doubled in bra.s.s, I just sat me down in my ignorance and dropped them a line. They sent me a ticket to where I was sidetracked up in Michigan, and I hurried down.
""Oh, it"s you, is it?" says Cap., as I piked into the ten by twelve office and announced myself. "Well, I"ve heard you throw a spiel and think you"ll do. But I didn"t know that you played bra.s.s. What"s your instrument?"
"Now, I had a faint sentiment from the beginning that this clause in their bill of requirements would get me into trouble, for I knew no more about band music than a he goat knows about the book of common prayer.
""I do the cymbals," says I.
""What!" snorts Cap., rearing up; "I thought you wrote that you played bra.s.s?"
""Well," says I, "ain"t cymbals bra.s.s?"
"It must have been my cold nerve that won Cap."s regard, for he placed me as "curio hall" lecturer and advertising man at twenty a week.
"The museum of Sheldon & McClintock proved to be a great notch. More fake freaks were thought out, worked up and exhibited during the course of that winter season than I would care to count. Then there was a small theater attached in which they put on very bad specialties and where painful-voiced young men and women warbled sentimental ballads about their childhood homes and stuff of that character. These got about ten dollars a week and had to do about thirty turns a day; they lived in their make-up and got so accustomed to grease paint before the end of their engagements that they felt only half dressed without it.
"The trick made money, and in about a year McClintock cut loose and went into a patent promoting scheme.
"Shortly afterward the first "continuous house" was opened in St. Louis, and the novelty of the thing was a body blow to Cap. He made a good fight, but lost money every day; and at last he imparted to me in confidence that if business did not improve he could see himself getting out the sh.e.l.ls and limbering up on them preparatory to going out and facing the world once more.
""The bank will stand for three hundred thousand dollars" worth more of my checks," says he, "and after they"re used up I"m done."
"He began to cut down expenses with the reckless energy of a man who saw the poor-house looming ahead for him; the results was that his bad shows grew worse, and the attendance wasn"t enough to dust off the seats. The biggest item of expense about the place was "Mighty Mardo," the boa-constrictor; his diet was live rabbits, and a twenty-foot snake with a body as thick as a four-inch pipe can dispose of good and plenty of them when he takes the notion. Cap. began to feed him live rats, and the mighty one soon began to show the effects of it.
""He"ll die on you," says I to Cap. one day.
""Let him," says he; "the rabbits stay cut out."
"One day a fellow came along with a high-schooled horse that he wanted to sell. He had more use for ready money just then than he had for the nag, so he offered to put it in cheap. But Cap. waved him away.
""I"ll need the money to buy meals with before long," says he to the fellow, "so tempt me not to my going hungry."
"This little incident seemed to make the old man feel bad; he locked himself up in the office for four hours or so communing with his inner self; but when he came out he was looking bright and gay.
""Say," says he, "I"ve changed my mind and just bought that horse."
""I didn"t see the man come back," says I.
""I made the deal over the "phone," says Cap. Then he pushes a thick wad of penciled stuff at me. "Here"s some truck I want you to take over to the printing house," he goes on. "When it"s out and up the brute will be well known."
"I takes a look over the copy, and my hat was lifted two inches straight off my head. The first one read something like this:
ADMIRAL
THE TALKING HORSE
TALKS LIKE A HUMAN BEING VOCAL ORGANS DEVELOPED LIKE THOSE OF A MAN HEAR HIM SING THE Ba.s.s SOLO "DOWN IN THE DEPTHS"
TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS
TO ANY ONE PROVING THESE CLAIMS FAKE IN THE SLIGHTEST DEGREE
""Reads good, don"t it?" asks Cap., sort of beaming through his nose-pinzes. "But give a look at the others."
"The next one was as bad as the first:
ADMIRAL!!!
THE HORSE WHO RECITES THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN A DEEP Ba.s.s VOICE AND WITH PERFECT ENUNCIATION
""I didn"t hear the fellow say the skate could do that kind of stuff,"
says I, just a bit dazed, after looking over a lot more of it.
""He only handed it to me as a sort of last card," says Cap., "and that"s what made me change my mind about buying him. Get five thousand twelve sheets in yellow and red; ten thousand three sheets; fifteen thousand block one sheets with cut of the horse. And you can place an order for as many black and white dodgers as they can turn out between this and the end of the week. It"s a big card and we"re going into it up to our eyebrows."
"If I had had time to consider anything but hustling, I might have thought the thing was a fake. But it was the old man"s game and I left him to do the worrying. I threw rush orders into the printers and soon had the presses banging away on the stuff desired.
"Next day Cap. started a four-inch double-column notice in every paper in town. I hired an army of distributers and began to put out the dodgers as they came hot off the bat; then I got a couple of Guinea bands, put them in open wagons, done up with painted muslin announcements, and sent them forth to tear off the melody and otherwise delight the eye and ear of the town. As the big stuff came off the press it was slapped up on every blank wall and fence in the city that wasn"t under guard; and when the job was finished, St. Louis fairly glared with it. If there was a person who hadn"t heard of the Talking Horse by the end of the week, they must have been deaf, dead or in jail.