Read Ebook: Twenty years a fakir by Weldon S James

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Ebook has 1038 lines and 61200 words, and 21 pages

to low water mark, but that needed to cause no uneasiness. A walk of a day and I could be feasting on the fatted calf.

But to be stranded in Davenport was a different matter. I remember, in the midst of my troubles, there popped into my head an old couplet, learned in my days at the public school:

"Take heart, nor of the laws of fate complain; Though now it be cloudy, it will clear up again."

With that in my mind I took on a moral brace and marched down the street, willing to meet fate half way, and looking for something to do that might show a profit, however small.

I found it.

Had I not been cut out by nature, and the special design of Providence for the vocation which I have so successfully followed, it is more than likely I would have sat down, with my head on my hands, and wept. I confess I felt like it for a moment. When I had resolutely thrust such weakness out of my mind, and taken a calmer view of the situation, I saw a glimmer of light ahead.

A miserably written placard in a store window furnished the inspiration.

In my early school days if there was any one thing I excelled in it was penmanship, and with decent opportunity, and a propulsion in such direction, I might have made a fair draughtsman, or a very decent sign painter. Whether I would have made a fortune or not is another question.

At this moment of distress I remembered some "work" I had seen done in Chicago by a traveling "artist," and that for the sake of amusement I had tried my hand at it for an hour. I went back to the hotel, and begged or borrowed a piece of soap. Then I worked store after store for sign work, promising to put up a magnificent one on each window, done in soap froth, for the inconsiderable sum of ten cents.

The thing was new to the most of them, and perhaps curiosity helped me. I was curious myself to know what I could do; and am not sure whether I was glad or sorry when the first merchant told me to fall to work.

But at it I went. A dozen strokes gave me confidence, and half a dozen jobs gave me skill. I made one dollar during the rest of the day, and two and a half the next. I lived on crackers and cheese the whole time, and cleaned the windows of a livery barn for permission to sleep in the office. The third day I had apparently exhausted the field, business fell off, and I determined to leave the town.

First, I went to the hospital, to take leave of Mr. Carlysle, and tried to force on him a share of my earnings. He refused, as at present he was well taken care of, and expected a small remittance in a few days, when he hoped to be sufficiently recovered to leave the city and attend to some business which would probably net him a little money. Bidding him good-bye, I slung my budget on my back and took to the ties, without any fair idea of where I was going or what I should do. I had a cash capital of three or four dollars in my pocket, and the art of making soap-foam signs at my fingers' ends. I had also heard of a pressing want for laborers in a construction gang which was working on an intersecting railroad, and if the worst came to the worst I was able to handle a shovel or pick against the best of them. I was not brought up on a farm for nothing.

The sign business stayed with me fairly well. Even the smallest towns were willing to pay for an exhibition of my skill, and hard times soon developed a faculty for economical living. I cleared my expenses, at least, and some days did a trifle more. Of course, this was better than nothing, but was not satisfactory to my ambition. At such a rate fortune was a long way off, and it seemed to me the time was about ripe for something else, even though it should turn out to be no better.

When I once began to look about me it was not long before the something else turned up. I followed the railroad track, to make sure of good walking, and on the ties one morning I fell in with a couple of actors, whose finances were even at a lower ebb than mine. They were all-round variety people, and had their musical instruments with them, but there was not a cent of money in the whole outfit.

It did not take long for us to fraternize, especially as I carried a store of cold victuals which, at a pinch, might serve as a lunch for all of us. At noon we stopped at a spring in the shade of the woods, and, after making a moderate meal, put our heads together in a consultation as to the future.

The men were somewhat acquainted with this part of the country, and spoke of a small town a short distance ahead, where a hall could be obtained at a very moderate expense. We decided, if possible, to arrange for the use of this hall on sharing terms, and give a grand, free entertainment, to be interspersed with a collection.

"Free entertainment this evening at eight thirty, at Bixley's Hall. Fun by the barrel and music by the cord. Singing and dancing by the world renowned Milton Brothers, and an afterpiece that will split your side. Leave your buttons at home if you don't want them busted; and don't get your measure taken for a new suit of clothes until the show is over. You are bound to laugh and grow fat."

This, and other nonsense, I howled out at the top of my voice, and before I had been at it a quarter of an hour "the Milton Brothers" wanted to know with what show I had last been hitting the road. They had a curiosity to know who else was stranded. You may be certain I did not give myself away, and yet I returned a fairly satisfactory answer.

Had we charged even a nickel I doubt if we could have drummed up the skeleton of an audience; but for a free entertainment--it was immense. The people came in crowds, and responded nobly when the "deacon" passed the hat.

There is all the difference in the world in towns and the crowds you gather in them. This crowd was willing to be amused, came to be amused, and had made up its mind not to be disappointed. They were with us from start to finish, and when we "counted up the house" found the collection amounted to within a fraction of twenty dollars. After paying for the hall, and some little incidental expenses, we had remaining about three dollars and a half apiece, and a large stock of confidence in the future.

That party was a wise one in its day and generation. The weather was delightful, the roads good, the moon near to full; for these reasons, and others, we took a promenade after the show was out. In other words, we saved the expense of a hotel bill, and went on to the next town, getting what rest we wanted in a friendly haystack along the road. While the Milton Brothers' combination lasted we paid the hotels less money, and lived better, than I had thought possible. We had generally got in too late for dinner, and an order for supper was enough to insure the moral support of the landlord. Probably he was disappointed that he did not see the color of our money, but that was no matter.

The business was grand while it lasted, and I continued to be a showman for some time. We went from town to town, walking when the distance was not too great, riding in box-cars sometimes, giving entertainments similar to the first, occupying halls when we could get them, but content with an empty store or dining room in the hotel at which we temporarily stopped. Sometimes, of course, there was very little profit, but oftener there was a fair dividend. Before long we had accumulated at least twenty dollars apiece. Passing through a large town, we succeeded in getting hold of a quantity of old lithographs and pictorial sheets. With these posters and a few small streamers and dodgers we billed a smaller town not far away for a "Grand Theatrical Entertainment," charging regular prices of admission.

Success was with us. After counting up the house, and deducting expenses, we found we were on the sunny side of fifty dollars.

Such a result as this was too much for us. We began to think that our time had come. Bob Milton talked of telegraphing for "people" to join us on ahead; and all of us figured up the cost of putting a show on the road that would carry eight or ten actors, and play the larger towns.

Had I even imagined myself born to the buskin, I suppose I would have taken up with the idea as enthusiastically as anyone. Fortunately, the footlights had never cast their glamour over me, and I had always regarded this venture as a makeshift and a stepping-stone. When I had done a few sums in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, I suggested that the time was hardly ripe for such a scheme. We were doing very well as it was, among the smaller towns, where theatres had no season, and the population could not, and would not, support a regular company. As for playing the larger towns, I did not believe it could be done for a month yet; and, meanwhile, if we tried it, we would have abundant opportunity to drop our little capital and become hopelessly involved. I thought it would be the part of wisdom to keep on as we had been doing, playing on velvet, and week by week adding to our slender store; otherwise, I thought I could retire from the show business.

To this view the boys finally and grumblingly consented, after having obtained my consent, by way of compromise, to hiring a hall at a fair-sized town not far away, and trying again the racket of a fine entertainment.

I think I had a presentment of failure, and presentments are not things to be trifled with. Surely, nothing ever fell quite so flat as that night's work. We had to procure a license, we had to put up five dollars in advance on the hall rent, our hotel bill was of respectable proportions, there were other incidental expenses--and we gave no show at all. There was no gang at the door that night, no rush for the front seats, no audience, no money, no nothing. A dozen boys and men presented themselves at the door, but the most of them were dead-heads. They filed dismally into the hall, and filed more dismally out again. The "house remained dark" after all. The Miltons concluded that it was more profitable to dismiss the audience and immediately "skip by the light of the moon" than to remain and wrestle with such complications as the balance of the hall rent, the hotel bill, and other like troubles which fate might send them.

Though the venture had made considerable inroad on our capital, I cannot say that I was particularly cast down, being full of that exhilaration which comes from the ability and the right to say, "I told you so." I objected, moreover, to the shirking of a bill which we had the means to pay without its causing us any serious financial embarrassment. Also, I was interested in the possible cause of our failure, which was a street fakir, whose harangue I had heard from the doorway of the hall, where I was in attendance.

Up to this time any little efforts I had made upon the lines which I have so long followed with such great success, had been addressed to the individual rather than to the crowd. I had heard street talkers, to be sure, but had never analyzed their methods, or thought seriously of following the profession.

I had wit of my own, however, and from the moment this fellow set up his stand I recognized the finger of destiny, and made the most of my opportunity. He was an orator in his way, and I can not do better here than to give the sum and substance of a discourse which put much money in his purse, and wrecked the Milton Theatrical Combination.

He was selling pens.

The article was good enough of its kind, and one probably familiar to the reader. It was brass, but looked like gold, and so flexible that it could stand any sort of abuse, except continuous writing, without being harmed in the least.

He had his little folding, three-legged stand, a torch, and a rough piece of board. He would rub the point of the pen up and down and jab it into the rough surface of the board, spread the points apart, put them together again, and then, filling it with ink, write and shade as artistically as you please. All the time he was so maltreating the poor pen he was keeping up a running fire of talk:

"Hey there, everybody! Come right this way. There is plenty of time. The show won't open for half an hour, and meanwhile I want the chance to do you good. I would like to give away lots of money--fives, tens, twenties, fifties--everything up to a hundred dollar bill. I'm a down-town, Eastern Yankee millionaire, and I've got more money than I know what to do with. If you'll lend me your attention for a few moments I'll make every mother's son of you rich and happy--in your mind at least.

"Here is a little article known as the automatic, Goldentine pen. It reads, writes and talks in sixty-four different languages, and is one of the handiest little articles you ever gazed on.

"It is small, gentlemen, but one of the toughest little staples that was ever brought into the world to bless mankind.

"In the first place, I will ask some gentleman from the audience to select a pen from the box. Any one in the lot will do. They are all exactly alike, so it makes no difference which one you take. Ah, thank you, sir. Now, I will take this pen, place it in this handsome penholder, and then rub the point up and down on this rough, pine board, in this manner, just as you would a stick. That should be a good enough test to convince anyone, but we will not stop at that. I'll take the little pen and stick it into the board, just as though it was a knife-blade. And not only that. I'll take the little points of the pen and bend them apart till they have the appearance of just getting over a drunk.

"I know it looks hard to so abuse a little thing like this--but like a careful curator, we'll just place the points back in their original position like this, stick the little pen in the ink like that, just as though nothing had ever happened to it. There is its work on the paper. You saw it done or you wouldn't have believed it. Is it not beautiful? The lines are fine enough, and graceful enough, to satisfy the dreams of an artist--'fair as the sun, clear as the moon, gentlemen, and beautiful as an army with banners.'

"If you want to write cross-eyed, or left-handed, it works just the same; and when it comes to German, French, Spanish, Danish, Irish, Scotch, Latin or Choctaw, the employment is identical. If you wish to come up and try before you buy, you are at perfect liberty to do so.

"I have here, also, a stock of beautiful silver-nickel penholders, that cost you a quarter the world over, and I couldn't sell them to you at any less. As a special inducement for your patronage, I'll make this proposition:

"Every man who buys a box of pens, one dozen in a box, gets two of these elegant holders, free, gratis, without cost or consideration. Who is the first man to pass up a quarter?

"Hurry up, gentlemen, I've only got about ten more minutes to talk to you before the show begins." "If you came to me after that and offered me fifty dollars for a single pen I wouldn't sell to you. Live and let live is my motto, and I never would do anything to interfere with another man's business. It is probably the first, last and only time in your lives that you will have the chance to buy the Automatic, Indestructible, Goldentine Pen at any such figures, and if you go to your jeweler he will charge you a dollar and a half or two dollars for an article not half so good. Where are--ah, yes. Here they come, here they come. Don't crowd so, my friends, I'll get around to you all by and by."

That was the substance of his opening oration, but he had jokes by the dozen and could hold the crowd at will. I am not sure but that the first purchasers were dummies, as the boys who came and broke the ice had a sheepish look; but the ice was fairly broken, and for quite a while he drove a roaring trade.

What of that? This time I was not busted, and I saw glimpses of a promising land ahead.

MEETING PROF. CARTER--THE MUSIC SCHEME--FLOWERS AND NOVELTIES--THE LADIES--THE SOAP RACKET--STREET GAGS AND JOKES--THE SINKING VESSEL.

I did not allow myself to be troubled over the disappearance of the other members of the Milton Combination. In such an affair every tub has to stand on its own bottom, and I had no visible baggage which the hall owner could attach, or any irate landlord claim as his own until all scores were paid.

I went around to the hotel and coolly informed the proprietor that the manager and his partner had skipped, leaving my salary unpaid, but that, fortunately, I had enough to settle my own modest bill for the night, and that if he chose I would pay it then and there. Despite his ill humor over the loss of a few dollars, I think I must have succeeded in arousing his sympathy, for he touched my purse but lightly, and treated me pleasantly enough.

It is quite possible I would have gone with the rest of the Combination, or started out on a moon-light journey by myself, had it not been that I wanted to see more of that fakir. I knew now that he was stopping at the same hotel, and thought I recognized in him a kindred spirit, with whom it might be well to confer. He came in half an hour or so after I did, and, being in high good humor over his evening's work, I did not find him at all hard to approach.

Of course, at the outset, I was cautious about letting him see my motive, and I opened the conversation by saying in a jocular manner that I had to thank him for breaking up our show. The people were not going to pay to see it when they could get something as good or better outside for nothing.

"See here, pard, you don't mean to say you're in earnest? I'm business to the hub, you understand; but I meant just what I told them over there when I said I wouldn't make a sale after you began. How hard are you up against it? I'm willing to make a fair divvy."

He put his hand in his pocket as he spoke, and I guess he actually meant it.

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