I kept my temper till the trainer handed me the cigarette and a match,
and the first puff I realized that they had filled the cigarette with
snuff, and after blowing out the smoke I began to sneeze, and the
audience fairly went wild. I sneezed about eight times, and at every
sneeze the pin in my spine hurt like thunder, but I never lost my
temper, till about the seventh sneeze, when my monkey mask flew off, and
then a boy about my size, right in front of me, yelled: "It ain't a
monkey at all, it is a little nigger," and he threw a ripe persimmon and
hit me right in the eye. I said right out in plain English: "You're a
liar and I can knock the stuffing out of you."
[Illustration: He Hit Me Right in the Eye.]
I pulled off my dress coat and started for him, but pa grabbed me on one
side and the monkey trainer on the other, and they tried to get me to
return to the monkey character, and chatter, and pa put my monkey mask
on me, but I struck right there, and pulled it off, and told him and the
managers that I would not play monkey any more with a tail pinned to my
spine, my stomach full of cayenne pepper and my nostrils full of Scotch
snuff, and my face all puckered up with persimmons.
The crowd yelled: "Fraud! Fraud! Kill the bald-headed old man who is the
father of the monkey.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157