My greatest interest was in the animals, especially the elephants. In my spare minutes—they were mighty few and far between—I talked with the keepers and learned from them many things about the care of animals. When we went into winter quarters at Columbus, Ohio, the head animal-man agreed to let me stay as a keeper.
The next season I went with the Adam Forepaugh show; then with the Frank Robbins show. I learned the circus business from the ground up and I was rapidly promoted. In 1883, I joined R. W. Fryer's show as head property-man and transportation master. It was a responsible position, which required every bit of the knowledge I had gained in the few preceding years. I had charge of all the circus property and I was boss of a large crew of men. The job kept me on the jump day and night. The canvas and property crews were made up of the toughest characters I have ever struck in my life—a man had to be tough in those days. They were hard to handle, but they were good workers and I got along all right with them.
They were always just a little bit tougher than any local talent we came up against on the tour, even though a circus used to attract the worst men for miles around. At Albuquerque one night, four "bad men" came to see the show. When they came up, Fitzgerald, who was one of the partners, was taking tickets at the entrance. He tried to get tickets from them, but they pulled out guns. One of them said: "These are our tickets." Fitzgerald let them in and passed the word along to the crew. The men took seats and, when the show started, they let loose with their guns, shooting through the tents and letting a few bullets fly into the ring. Sometimes a bullet would strike near a performer, raising a puff of dust and scaring him half to death. The "bad men" were sitting with their legs dangling down between the seats. Some of the crew took seats near them, just as if they were part of the audience, and a dozen property-men sneaked under the tent. When the signal was given, they grabbed the dangling legs and pulled. Then the circus-men in the seats jumped up and, without letting the audience know what was happening, they snatched the guns. Down went the "bad men" between the seats. It all happened so quickly and so quietly that the audience didn't realize what had become of them. The canvas-men "toe-staked" them; that is, they hit them over the heads with the toe-stakes that are driven into the ground to keep the seat-stringers from sliding. A toe-stake is of just the proper size and weight to use in a fight, and it is the circus-man's idea of a good weapon. The crew buried the four men while the show was on. I thought there would be trouble before we could get out of town, but the men weren't even missed.
The Fryer outfit had a Pennsylvania Dutchman called Charley. He was one of the strongest men I have ever seen. One night, when the stake-wagon, drawn by eight horses, was stuck in the mire, he lifted the rear end of the wagon on his back while the horses pulled it out. I think that if Charley had got a good swing at a man and used his full strength, he could have killed him with one blow. One day, in Christchurch, New Zealand, while Fitzgerald was taking tickets, a larrikin—a tough—came along and said: "Ticket?—I'll spit in your eye." Fitzgerald knocked him down and called for Charley, who was working at the ticket-wagon. Charley took the larrikin in his arms just as easily as if he had been a baby, and carried him out into the street. There he dropped him and said: "If I have to do this again, I'll hit you." The larrikin didn't come back.
Charley's work at the ticket-wagon was to keep the crowd moving. In front of the ticket-window there was always stretched down a big sheet of canvas covered with sawdust. When a man put down his money for a ticket, the fellow in the wagon passed him out a ticket for the cheapest seat and charged him the highest price—unless the man showed that he knew exactly what seat he wanted; in that case, the ticket-seller shoved his change out so that one or two coins slid off the counter into the sawdust. If the man tried to stop and hunt in the sawdust for his money, Charley pushed him along to make room for the others who wanted to buy tickets. After the crowd had passed into the teat, Charley and his pal would take tap the canvas and sort out the money from the sawdust.
I wasn't in on that "flam" system, but I had another way of making money. As head property-man, I stood near the entrance to the "big-top" and, when people weren't satisfied with their seats, they came to me. I sold them the privilege of taking better seats. The sum acquired in this way was known as "cross-over money" and it was supposed to be turned over to the company. One day one of the partners objected to this arrangement. He decided that he would take the "cross-over money" himself and have me collect tickets at the main entrance. The other partner in the show would not agree to this scheme. "If Mayer takes the 'cross-over money'," he said, "we get half of it, at least; but, if you take it, we don't get any."
That settled the matter, and, considering times and ways, I've always thought that it was a good tribute to my honesty. It was a crude business and every man was out for himself. To break even, a man had to be just as hard as the next one, and to come out ahead, he had to be a bit harder. I liked the game, but I always had the feeling that it wasn't the thing I wanted most. I was interested chiefly in the animals, but, as head property-man, I had little time to be near them.
My desire to learn all there was to know about animals was the main reason why I cultivated the acquaintance and friendship of Gaylord. He was an expert animal-man—probably the best informed in the business—and had been P. T. Barnum's confidential agent for years. He had traveled the world over, time and again.
It was Gaylord who negotiated with the Siamese officials for one of the famous white elephants of Siam. Barnum had his heart set on having one of them for his show and he sent Gaylord out with instructions to go the limit. The stumbling-block in the transaction was that the Siamese believe the spirits of the ancestors of the royal family are transferred to the white elephants. The animals live in the royal palace and are cared for with all the ceremony given to any members of the reigning family. Of course, Barnum's plan was just as unthinkable to them as if he had offered to exhibit the king in his side-show. There was a hot exchange of cablegrams between Barnum in New York and Gaylord in Siam. Finally Barnum offered the government $250,000 for the privilege of borrowing one of the elephants for just one year. He agreed to support a retinue of priests and attendants and to pay all transportation charges. The government would not even consider the proposition so Gaylord gave up in disgust and cabled that the deal was off. But Barnum was not discouraged. When Gaylord returned to this country, he found that the old man was advertising a white elephant from the royal palace of Siam. Barnum had simply used a whitewash brush on an ordinary elephant, with the result that he had a whiter elephant than the Siamese ever dreamed of seeing. The animal was so covered with velvet robes and surrounded by attendants that the audience could not detect the fraud; the general effect was good and the trick brought in a lot of money.
Gaylord was quite deaf when I knew him, and so was Fryer. Sometimes at rehearsal in the morning Fryer would come along and say to Gaylord: "Let's go up on the top seat—I want to tell you something privately." Then they would climb up to the top seats and exchange confidences—shouting at each other so loud that you could hear them all over the lot.