" and they were making a rush to clean out the show
when the dressing-room door opened to let the hippodrome chariot racers
out, and the way the chariots scattered the crowd was a caution.
That saved us from serious trouble, for the chariots run over a lot of
negroes, which pleased the audience, and they let us off without killing
us. They got me back to the dressing-room and had to take a pair of
pinchers to get that safety pin out of my spine, and on the way to the
dressing-room some one walked on my monkey tail and pulled it off, and
that was a dead loss. Pa sat by me and fanned me, 'cause I was faint,
and then he said: "My boy, you played your part well, until the
persimmon hit you, and then you forgot that you were an actor, and
became yourself, and I don't blame you for wanting to punch that boy who
called you a little nigger, and said I was your pa. After this chariot
race is over we will go around in front of the seats, and find the boy,
and you can do him up. Your monkey business was the feature of the show
to-day."
We went out and found a boy that looked like the one that sassed me, but
he must have been his big brother, 'cause when I went up to him and
swatted him on the nose, he gave me a black eye, and I am a sight.
That evening, at the performance, we cut out the educated ourang outang,
and the lawyer we met on the cars came to the show, and said we would
all be arrested for not performing all we advertised, but he could
settle it for a hundred dollars, and pa paid him the money, and he went
out and got a jag and came in the show and was going to make trouble,
when pa took him to the cage where the 40-foot boa constrictor was
uncoiling itself, and the Virginian got one look at the snake and went
through the side of the tent yelling: "I've got 'em again.
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