The crowd yelled: "Pin on the tail; the tail goes with the hide," and
the trainer began to pin it on. Say, I could have killed that trainer.
He run that safety pin about an inch into my spine, and I jumped into
the air about four feet, and I was going to use a cuss word that I
learned in Philadelphia, but I had presence of mind enough to grunt just
as Dennis used to, and chatter like a monkey, and the day was saved. The
tail was on and I turned my back to show that it was on straight, like a
woman's hat, when pa said to hurry the performance to a conclusion,
because he could see that there was a spirit of unrest in the audience,
and he would not be surprised any moment to see Virginia secede and go
out of the union.
There was nothing more for me to do except to drink my cup of
after-dinner coffee, and smoke my cigarette, and quit, and I was patting
myself on the back at my success and squirming around in the chair,
'cause the pin in my tail hurt my back but I never said a word. The
attendant brought in the coffee and I took a couple of swallows, when I
realized that somebody had put cayenne pepper into it, and I was hot
under the collar, but though I was burning up inside, I never peeped,
but just choked and took a swallow of water and vowed to kill the person
that made the coffee.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156