Side Show Studies | Page 7

had this sparkler left for 'fall
money,' and when I saw that snake I pushed it over my uncle's
counter." He pointed to a large yellow diamond in his scarf, and the
Stranger tried to make a mental calculation of a pawnbroker's valuation
of it.

"Merritt managed to dig up some mazuma, and we chipped in fifty
apiece and became the proud possessors of Big Pete. If I had been wise
to the business I would have known there was something wrong to
make him sell so cheap, but we more than got our money back out of
him the first week, so we had no kick coming. The newspaper boys
were good to us and gave us a lot of space, and we were playing on
velvet and had Pete besides. It was such a cinch that Merritt, who
looked after the snake while I did the spieling and sold tickets on the
front, commenced to get worried for fear we should lose him.
"'Jim,' says he to me one morning when business was a little dull, 'I
believe there's something phony about the blame snake. He won't eat
and I've tempted him with the best I could get. I guess I'll run down to
the Bowery and get one of those snake sharps to come up and have a
look at him; I believe his teeth need filling.'
[Illustration: "Just two little red dots on the back of his hand."]
"I knew he was stuck on a girl that was doing a turn in a music hall
down that way, but business was dull, so I let him go without raising a
holler. The next day he comes back with a jaw-carpenter who claimed
he knew all about snakes and when he gets through looking at Pete's
mouth we felt pretty blue.
"'Canker!' says he. 'Your little snakelet may live a month.'
"Well, that put it up to us to get busy, so I did the spieling on the
outside until my voice gave out, and Merritt lied on the inside until he
was black in the face, telling the Rubes about how many sheep old Pete
swallowed every week. We had a lot of rabbits and doves with him in
the cage, hopping and flying around behind the thick glass front, and
they were real sociable with old Pete, who never batted an eye at 'em.
At the end of the month he was looking pretty thin and we were afraid
he would peg out any day. It was hard luck on us, for things were
coming our way and our bank rolls were getting good and plenty thick
and they were all 'yellow boys,' from the case card to the wrapper. Our
wads grew fatter as Pete grew thinner, and we were looking for some
easy mark to unload him onto, when one morning Merritt comes

running out, just as I was staving off a farmer who had heard him lie
and brought around a flock of scabby sheep to sell to us for snake food.
"'Jim,' he yells, grabbing me by the shoulders and waltzing around like
a whirling dervish, 'we'll make Vanderbilt and Rockefeller look like
thirty cents; old Pete has swallowed every blame pigeon and rabbit in
the coop.'
"It seemed too good to be true, but when I went to have a look there
was not a feather nor a piece of fur to be seen and old Pete was
examining all the corners of the cage to see that he hadn't overlooked a
bit. He looked a whole lot better already, and Merritt and I began to
discuss what we should do with all our money.
"But say, there was one thing we forgot to reckon on--the appetite he
had been saving for about a year, and although the money came in
faster than ever, most of it went out to the rabbit men and pigeon
fanciers.
"You know that when a snake swallows an animal you can see the
bulge in him for a long time, but you couldn't see any in old Pete. He
was just the same size all the way from his nose to the tip of his tail, for
there was no space between the animals.
"Things began to look pretty serious for us, for we had used up all the
available small live stock in the surrounding country, and the Rubes got
onto the fact that we were up against their game and raised the ante on
us for what was left. It's like taking candy from a child to sell a gold
brick to a farmer, but he everlastingly gets back at you if you have to
buy any of his produce. Hungry Joe and the man who invented the
green-goods game would be skinned to