David Lannarck, Midget | Page 4

Fisheye. Why, he can take these little bears and have 'em turning somersaults, dancing, and climbing to their perches in no time. Then he sells 'em into some big act.
"Fisheye is our meat for this play, but don't sell out too quick."
Leaving the cubs to the further destruction of their cage, the prospective salesmen wended their way through a maze of sidewalls, poles, unplaced wagons, cages. On past the refreshment booth that was setting up in the central area; past a score of elephants, swaying in contentment over the morning hay; past camels, llamas, zebras, and other luminaries, to the far end of the big tent where a group of laborers were aiding two elephants to line up the last of the cages and vans in a proper circle around the enclosure.
It was all confusing enough to the big Westerner, but the little man knew where to go. He pressed forward to where a little, old, dried up "razorback" was regaling two of the workmen with words of experience if not wisdom.
"'En I told Shako," he declared with emphasis, "that he never could win back old Mom's confidence, till he got a big armload of sugarcane en doled hit out to her. En shore enough when we got to Little Rock and Shako got holt of some sugarcane, he win that old elephant's respect instanter. En that ain't all! When we got to Memphis en hit into that big storm, why ole Mom--" But the audience died away to one man as the midget's voice interrupted.
"Say, Fisheye, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Welborn. Meet Mr. Welborn, Mr. Gleason. Mr. Welborn here dickers a little in native animals and has a couple of the slickest, fattest, neatest bear cubs I've seen in years. He's got too much business to give any time to training them and I told him of your success with animals and he wants to make a deal with you."
"What kind of a deal? And where's yer bars?" Fisheye was alert to the business up to knowing the full import of the deal.
"They are out here in a coop--on a trailer. He brought them down out of the mountains this morning."
"Did ye ketch 'em this mornin'?" queried Fisheye as he followed the two salesmen to the truck.
"Naw, he's had 'em in training for two months. Best of all, he knows how to take care of their hair, how to feed 'em. Look, there they are, alike as two peas and ready to climb a pole or turn a somersault."
Fisheye was peering through the slats. "I wish we had 'em out whar I could see 'em better. Now what's yer deal, Prince? Ye said somethin' about a deal?"
"Well, it's like this, Fisheye. Mr. Welborn could go right on training these bruins and peddle them through an ad in Billboard for a sure two hundred smackers, surely by Thanksgiving--"
"Two hundred nothin's," retorted the wary Fisheye, who was not to let a fancy price go by without protest. "Thar's no bar in the world wuth a hundred dollars. Why up in the Yallerstone, they offer to give 'em away!"
"Sure they do, or did last year. They are the old mangy bears that bother tourists, Jesse James bears, that they want to get rid of. But they wouldn't sell you a cub for love or money. Bears are scarce this year. They hint of a bear famine up there.
"And anyhow, you didn't let me finish. Why if you owned these bears and had 'em climbing an injun ladder right up to their perch in the animal act, had 'em dancing, turning somersaults, you would ask a half grand for them and never bat an eye. They would be worth it, and you know it. But rather than go through the work of getting them ready, Mr. Welborn is willing to take an even hundred for the two. Better still, he'll let you make a note for the hundred due in ninety days--or say Christmas. By that time you've got the bears sold and your note paid, and jingling the difference."
Fisheye was squinting through the slats. "I wish we had 'em out whar a man could see what he's buying."
"Haven't you got an empty cage where we could turn them out in the daylight?" asked the sales manager.
"Shore I have. I jist got pie Rip's cage all cleaned out an ready fer what come."
"Well, get it open. Cut loose the trailer, Mr. Welborn, and we will back it in by hand. Here, Happy, you and Joe help push this trailer in to where Fisheye shows you. These cubs need initiating anyhow."
The trailer was unhooked and carefully backed in through a passage laid out by the versatile Fisheye. A door was opened in one of the unplaced cages and