One warm afternoon they made me put on three soft, thick sweaters and then took me to a drug-store in the Square, where they poured over me half the contents of a long line of perfumery bottles on the counter,—white-rose, heliotrope, patchouly, musk, ylangylang, violet, bay-rum, and several kinds of cologne,—all the deadly scents that one investigates while waiting for a prescription to be put up. Then we got on an electric car,—the fellows who were running me at one end, and I at the other. They of course (after instructing me to snuggle up to my fellow passengers,—refined old ladies and peevish middle-aged gentlemen in particular) pretended to ignore me. But the other passengers did n't. Everybody I sat next to would turn, after about three seconds, look at me with a slight contraction of the nostrils, and then move away; in less than ten seconds more they would be on the other side of the car. It was not long before I had one side of the car all to myself. Then—this also I had been ordered to do—when we reached the edge of the bridge, I jumped up and, as a sort of climax, "threw a fit." Passengers in street cars always find this very trying, especially if you fall down in the aisle foaming at the mouth and clutch at their feet. Before my five days of running were over, I grew exceedingly expert at throwing fits. I certainly had enough practice at it. Well, when we got across the bridge I was hustled out of the car into a drug-store, where I recovered in time to catch the next car back—and do the whole thing over again.
It was on the evening of that day, I think, that they took me to the theatre—or, I should say, the theatres, as we visited several. (They had in the mean time taken off the perfume-soaked garments, not through consideration for my feelings, but for their own.) One might think that, under the circumstances, going to the theatre would have been a delightful rest. But it wasn't. I had a seat all to myself down in front, and the fellows who took me sat ten or twelve rows back. Beyond the fact that the first play we went to was a nice, staid performance that had attracted a large and very "dressy" audience, I have no recollection of it; for my thoughts were all centred on the dreadful thing that was going to happen at the end of the first act.
The curtain went down; there was a polite flutter of applause, and then, while the orchestra was getting ready and the house was perfectly quiet except for a murmur of talk, I stood up, facing everybody, and exclaimed in a loud, distinct voice,—
"This show is bum, and I want my money back."
The effect was electrical. All conversation stopped instantly, and I could actually hear the craning of necks from one end of the theatre to the other.
"This show is bum, and I want my money back," I declared again, louder than before. Some men near me began to laugh; the ladies looked scared to death, and from the gallery came a wild clapping of hands and yells of, "That's no lie," and "He's all right." Whereupon (as per instructions) I began to yell the thing over and over again at the top of my voice, and kept it up until four ushers skated down the aisle and threw me out, still yelling. I had visions, as I flew along toward the exit, of white-faced women indulging in hysterics. I did this at two other shows, and the fellows regretted very much that there didn't happen to be any five-act plays in town, for they said my technique got better and better as the evening went on.
Then I spent whole afternoons in creeping up behind the sparrows in the Square and endeavoring to put salt on their tails; in going from shop to shop trying to get the clerks to change a cent; in holding up baby carriages, kissing the occupants and then remarking that I was "passionately fond of animals." (I kissed fifty-six babies on Commonwealth Avenue in one afternoon.) I stalked Indians with a little bow and arrow in the Yard one morning between lectures (cutting lectures is n't allowed), craftily creeping from tree to tree, hiding a moment, peeping out warily, and finally exclaiming as I shot an arrow and dashed into the open,—
"Bang—and another red-skin bit the dust."
This was one of the few times (except in the evening) that I saw Berri during the entire week. He was walking up and down the stone parapet of Matthews with a silly little false red fringe of beard around his neck, proclaiming to all the passers-by,—
"Listen to me; I am a Berrisford of Salem."