The managers asked me how the hornets' nests came to be in the
Chinese lanterns. I told them they would have to ask the negroes for how
was I to know what weapons they had concealed about their persons, any
more than pa was responsible if his politicians carried revolvers.
They said that looked reasonable, but they believed I knew more about it
than anybody, but as we had to pack up the show and make the next town
they wouldn't lynch me till the next day. Pa got me to put cold cream on
his stings, and then he said, "Hennery, you are the limit."
CHAPTER XXII.
The Show Does Poor Business in the South--Pa Side Tracks a Circus
Car Filled with Creditors--A Performance Given "For the Poor," Fills
the Treasury--A Wild West Man Buncoes the Show.
Gee, but this show has been up against it the last week. We haven't made
a paying stand anywhere. The show business is all right when you have to
turn people away, or let them in on standing room. Then you can snap
your fingers at fate, and drink foolish water out of four-dollar bottles
of fizz that has the cork trained so it will pop out clear to the top of
the tent, and make a noise that makes you think you own the earth, but
when you strike the southern country where the white men have not sold
their cotton and the negroes have not been paid for picking it, the
audience looks like a political caucus in an off year, when there is
nobody with money enough to stimulate the voters.
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