both. And then, there wan’t no dam nonsense about him. He wood peel out of his Injun clothes, and go and clean the lamps, and help pack, or do anything. Before the doors opened, he’d do canvasman, and howl at the door, and at the door he’d play the bass drum or grind the organ with cheerfulness. In the street parade of the big show, he was, for five years, our Washington, The Father of his Country, standing on a revolvin’ pedestal. Then, jist as soon as he got his dinner, he’d help get up the canvas, and then skin into the Zulu rig, and after that, he’d peddle lemonade, or do anything to make himself yooseful. But a woman spiled him. Wimin spile a great many good men. We hed a woman, Biddy McCarty, wich was doin’ the Circassian lady, with hair to her heels, you know ’em, and sometimes the bearded lady. Likewise, she was a Chinese knife thrower, and Foggarty yoosed to do the Chinaman she throwed her knives at. Well, Foggarty, seein’ that she was an Irish gal, and he an Irishman, coodent no more help fallin’ in love with her than fire kin help burnin’ tow. He got it into his head that ef he could marry a gal with so much talent, he might, some day, have a side-show of his own. And then, as time rolled on, and they hed kids, he cood train ’em up to the family business, and do things cheap. He wanted to be a Bearded family, or a Zulu family, or a Jap family, or suthin, and so he married Biddy, and they went double. Biddy hed a will of her own, and besides she would git drunk. Rum spiles more talent in the perfesh than anything else. She had a trick of beating Foggarty, and she led him the devil’s own life. It was at Leroy, New York. She had bin on as the Bearded Woman, and as the Circassian Lady, and hed sold all the photographs she cood, and hed changed to go on as the Chinese Knife Thrower, from Hang Fo. Foggarty hed changed to a Chinaman—Lu Fu, the Wizard—when I diskivered that Biddy hed bin drinkin'. I warned Foggarty to look out, for she was ugly, but he laughed, and said she wouldn’t hurt him, and went on. You hev seen that act. Foggarty stands agin a board with his arms spread out, and the China woman throws knives all around him. She puts ’em between his fingers, and clost to his neck and between his legs. Biddy could throw a knife within a hair of where she wanted it to go. She hed talent, as I sed. But that day she was ugly. She and Foggarty hed hed it hot, and when she came in twistin’ her queue, I knowd suthin was goin’ to happen. She throwd six or eight knives all right, and then one went, whiz! It took off Foggarty’s second finger on his right hand, as clean as a butcher’s cleaver could do it. And Biddy fired the rest of the knives at him and rushed out, yellin', ‘Be gorra, Mike Foggarty, and ye’ll bate me over the head with a tent pin agin, will ye? Ye’ll hev one finger less to do it wid, onyhow.’ Most men would hev abandoned the perfesh with that finger off, but while it was bein’ dressed Mike whispered to me, ‘Put it on the bills that the Zulu Chief lost the finger by a English saber, at the battle of—where was the battle?’ I hev Foggarty yet, but Biddy broke his heart and he aint as good as he was. She run away with the cannibal from the Friendly Islands, who cood do the tight-rope and fire-eatin', and they are doin’ hall shows and the variety business together. He taught her to do a song and dance, as well as fire-eatin', and she is now ‘M’lle Lulu Delmayne.’ They do society sketches, too. Foggarty is jest as willin’ as ever, but the blow was too much for him. He goes with us next season as a Zulu, and also lecters the sacred Burmese cattle, and has a part in the wild perarie scene, and fires the calliope. He can’t do Washington any more, for he has rheumatiz, and can’t stand an hour with his right hand in a military coat. He’s practisin’ to be a lion tamer, but I don’t bleeve it’ll do. He may git to play the snake, but that is about as high as he’ll ever git in the perfesh.”
THE LOST FINGER.
The next day the old gentleman departed for the continent.
CHAPTER XV.
RICHMOND.
FOUR weeks in London! Twenty-eight days of incessant sight-seeing. A series of continual surprises day after day, from early in the morning until late at night; a constant succession of new things of interest crowded and forced upon one, until at length the senses weary, the mind refuses to take in any more, and imperatively cries out for a change, for rest. The body is exhausted. The dull, dense atmosphere is enervating. A night’s sleep gives no refreshment. One rises in the morning by sheer force of will power, with a feeling that it would be a delight, pure and simple, to go back to bed and sleep five or six hours longer, and when he does finally dress and go out on the street, he has no more ambition, nor inclination to do anything, or go anywhere, or see anything, than as if there were nothing to do, nowhere to go, nor anything to see. But that is what he is here for, and from force of habit he goes on the everlasting treadmill of sight-seeing, until the very name of London is odious, and its never-ending throng of people, hurrying along in the pursuit of pleasure or business, that, at first, was such a novel and interesting study, becomes distasteful to a degree, and he wishes he were home again or in some vast wilderness, or—anywhere, away from the narrow, crowded streets of high wall, and old-fashioned buildings, that stifle all his energies and tire his very nature.