Peck's Bad Boy in an airship

by George W. Peck

So Pa and I went down to the Express Office, and Pa gave the man in charge a paper and the grand hailing sign of distress, and he handed out bags of gold and bales of bills, and Pa hid a lot in his leather belt, and put some in his pockets, and said, “Come on, Henry, and we will see this town, and buy it if we like it.”

Well, we went out after dark and took in the concert halls and things, and Pa drank wine and I drank nothing but ginger ale, and women who waited on us sat in Pa’s lap and patted his bald head, and tried to feel in his pockets, but Pa held on to their wrists and told them to keep away, and he took one across his knees and slapped her across the pajamas with a silver tray, and I thought Pa was real saucy.

A head waiter whispered to me and wanted to know what ailed the old sport, and I told him Pa was bitten with a wolf in our circus last year, and we feared he was going to have hydrophobia, and always when these spells come on the only thing to do was to throw him into a tank of water, and I should be obliged to them if they would take Pa and duck him in the fountain in the center of the café, and save his life.

Pa was making up with the girl he had paddled with the silver tray, buying champagne for her and drinking some of it himself out of her slipper, when the head waiter called half a dozen Frenchmen who were doing police duty, and told them to duck Pa in the fountain, and they grabbed him by the collar and the pants and made him walk turkey towards the fountain, and he held on to the girl, and the Frenchmen threw Pa and the girl into the brink with a flock of ducks, and they went under water, and Pa came up first yelling murder, and then the girl came up hanging to Pa’s neck, and she gave a French yell of agony, and Pa gave the grand hailing sign of distress, and yelled to know if there was not an American present that would protect an American citizen from the hands of a Paris mob. The crowd gathered around the circular fountain basin and one drunken fellow jumped in the water and was going to hold Pa’s head under water while the girl found his money, when Pa yelled “Hey, Rube,” the way they do in a circus when there is a fight, and by ginger it wasn’t a second before half a dozen old circus men that used to belong to the circus when Pa was manager in the States made a rush for the fountain, knocked the Frenchmen galley west, and pulled Pa out of the water and let him drain off, and they said, “Hello, old man, how did you happen to let them drown you?” and Pa saw who the boys were and he hugged them, and invited them to all take something and then go to his hotel.

After Pa Had Been Ducked in the Fountain They Charged for Two Ducks He Killed by Falling on Them.

When Pa paid the check for the drinks they charged in two ducks they said Pa killed in the tank by falling on them. But Pa paid it and was so tickled to meet the old circus boys that he gave the girl he went in swimming with a twenty-franc note, and after staying until along towards morning we all got into and on top of a hack and went to the hotel and sat up till daylight talking things over.

We found the circus boys were on the way to Germany to go with the Hagenbach outfit to South Africa to capture wild animals for circuses, and when Pa told the boss, who was one of Hagenbach’s managers, about his airship and what a dandy thing it would be to sail around where the lions and tigers live in the jungle, and lasso them, from up in the air, out of danger, he engaged Pa and me to go along, and I guess we will know all about Africa pretty soon.

The next day we went out to the club where Pa keeps his airship, with the boss of Hagenbach’s outfit and a cowboy that used to be with Pa’s circus, to practice lassoing things. They got out the machine and Pa steered it, and the boss and I were passengers, and the cowboy was on the railing in front with his lariat rope, and we sailed along about fifty feet high over the farms, until we saw a big goat. The cowboy motioned for Pa to steer towards the goat, and when we got near enough the cowboy threw the rope over the goat’s horns and tightened it up, and Mr. Goat came right along with us, bleating and fighting. We led the goat about half a mile over some fences, and finally came down to the ground to examine our catch, and we landed all right, and Hagenbach’s boss said it was the greatest scheme that ever was for catching wild animals, and he doubled Pa’s salary, and said we would pack up the next day and go to the Hagenbach farm in Germany and take a steamer for South Africa in a week.

They were talking it over, and the cowboy had released the goat, when that animal made a charge with his head on our party. He struck Pa below the belt, butted the boss in the trousers until he laid down and begged for mercy, stabbed the cowboy with his horns, and then made a hop, skip and jump for the gas bag, burst a hole in it, and when the gas began to escape the goat’s horns got caught in the gas bag and the goat died from the effects of the gas, and we were all glad until about fifty peasant women came across the fields with agricultural implements, and were going to kill us all.