"You bet!" said the Wild Man. "Ain't this a dandy rig? It gets 'em, too. But don't give me away; I get a good living out of this."
Just then a group of spectators came crowding forward, and the Wild Man let out a howl that brought them to an appalled halt. The keepers brandished their axes.
"Well, did you ever?" Willis muttered as we moved on. "Doesn't that beat everything?"
The Fat Lady was ponderously unwinding the coils of the boa constrictor from round her neck as we paused in front of her cage, but presently she recognized us and smiled. We asked her whether she wasn't afraid to let the snake coil itself round her neck.
"No, not when he has had his powders," she replied. "Sometimes, when he is waking up, I have to be a little careful not to let him get clean round me, or he'd give me a squeeze."
The old man and the educated dogs had just finished their performance when we came in, and so we went over to the platform on the other side of the tent, where the gypsy fortune teller was plying her vocation.
"Cross me palm, young gentlemen," she droned. "Cross me palm wi' siller, and I'll tell your fortunes and all that's going to happen to you." Then she, too, recognized us and smiled. "Did you find your hogs?" she asked.
"All but one," Willis told her.
"It was too bad," she said, "but you never will get anything out of the boss of this show. He's a brute! He cheats me out of half my contract money right along."
"Where do you come from?" Willis said with a knowing air. "You are no gypsy."