Peace proceeded.
When my father was travelling with Kensett’s menagerie, and the proprietor was doing a good business in most of the provincial towns, business began to drop off in consequence of an opposition show visiting the same places as Kensett’s. There was not room enough for both at the same time, and Mr. Kensett as a natural consequence was greatly annoyed. At one town the opposition shop (Barlow’s menagerie), as it was termed, carried everything before them, the reason for this being that they had one of the largest ourang-outangs that had ever been brought to this country. The creature was said to bear a remarkable resemblance to the human species, and crowds upon crowds were to be seen daily making their way to Barlow’s establishment. Kensett shifted his quarters, and moved on to the next town, under cover of the night. He had not, however, been many hours there before Barlow made his appearance. Poor man, he was perfectly furious when he found that a similar course was adopted by his rival at other towns. Business fell off painfully, and the question was what was to be done under these perplexing circumstances. The ourang-outang was the central point of attraction.
One evening, after a wretched day’s business, my father was smoking his pipe with Mr. Kensett, who was at this time down in the dumps—and, as you may imagine, my father was not in the best of spirits. He had been performing with his wild animals to comparatively empty benches.
“He’s potted us—knocked us out of time, that’s quite certain,” said Mr. Kensett.
“He carries all before him,” returned my father, “and why? because he’s got an ugly brute—the ugliest I ever saw—of the monkey tribe. One never knows how to deal with the public. They are so capricious and uncertain.”
“Uncertain be d——d!” shouted Kensett, “there’s no mistake about the matter! they are pretty certain to desert me for my rival—that is, as far as we can see at present.”
“Luck may change, sir,” says my father.
“It may and it may not—more of the latter than the former. Ah, it’s a bad look-out for the remainder of this tour.”
The two companions lapsed into silence for some little time after this, and puffed away at their pipes.
Presently Kensett said, in a reflective manner—