One evening the show pitched on the outskirts of a big town. The booth was raised, the trestles fixed, the boards laid, and the costume-chests emptied of their miscellaneous finery.
Murph lay curled up by himself behind the stove; all round him reigned a deafening uproar, a rush and scurry of feet, a perfect hurricane of noise. The master was shouting and scolding; the Jack-pudding with his hoarse voice was yelping like a dog, mewing like a cat, crowing like a cock, getting into trim for the patter-speech with which to tickle the ears of the groundlings, while the general hands were bustling about, nailing and hammering, stimulated by copious libations of wine.
The monkeys, too, bore their part; hearing all this uproar, they joined in with a will. Their shrill scolding rose above the hammering, and they chattered incessantly and shook the bars of their cages. The dogs barked, a solemn-faced parrot repeated a bad word over and over again, while the musicians hired for the evening performance drew lugubrious notes from their instruments by way of keeping their hand in.
Hurrah! the stage was set up at last.
Then the dogs were dressed, the seats given a last wipe-down—and suddenly boom! boom! the big drum, furiously beaten, rolled out its deep-toned summons. Instantly a perfect hurricane of discordant, ear-splitting noises was let loose in front of the show-tent. Answering the deafening rumble of the big drum, the fifes and ophicleide awoke, the kettledrum began its rub-a-dub, the cymbals clashed, and the whole booth shivered and shook from floor to roof-tree.
Shouts, yells, bursts of ribald laughter, combined in one deep-toned, incessant roar to form the bass, while cat-calls, cries of vituperation and repartee, the trampling of many feet marking time before the doors, the clown’s voice rising and falling amid a tempest of scuffling and kicking, all met and mingled in the air above the red glow of the pitch-pine torches flaring in the wind, and punctuating the general din one never-ceasing refrain—
“First seats one franc; second seats half a franc; third places twenty centimes—only twenty centimes. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen; just about to begin! Citizens and soldiers, walk up, walk up!”
XIII
A torrent of humanity surged up the steps, pushing, shoving, shouting; then, suddenly released, poured tumultuously over the seats of the auditorium. Then the big drum redoubled its efforts, the fife blew its shrillest, the ophicleide lost all control of its keys, tom-toms and hand-bells, frantically beaten, added their quota to the din, the kettledrums made a terrific rub-a-dub, and the whole force of the company, a mad whirl of startling colours and flashing spangles, danced a fandango on the platform.
“Walk up, gentlemen, walk up!” the master-showman kept yelling; “here you shall see what you shall see—marvels and miracles you’ve never seen the like of before! Look at me! I am the world-famous Brinzipoff, director-in-chief to the Royal Theatre of St. Petersburg and to all the crowned heads of Europe! Hi! ho! hup! only twenty centimes the back seats! Halloa! ha! hurrah! here you are, here you are, ladies and gentlemen, this way for the front seats!”