“Cap, you can’t afford to open your mouth. I can have you tarred and feathered here in ten minutes if I let the crowd in on what you’ve tried to do. I’m a son of a seacook on handlin’ a crowd.”
The skipper unclosed and shut his mouth like a fish, but he realised the force of that warning.
Hiram went along and prepared to climb back upon his seat. As he set his toe on the hub one of the crowd inquired suspiciously:
“If it ain’t a sassy question, mister, what was that critter that you was putting into the cart here? We heard it squawkin’, but we couldn’t see very well.” Hiram, his success making him amiable, smiled upon the bystanders.
“Gents, I am both pleased and proud to tell you that I have now in this van one of the most beautiful specimens of the five-finned American mermaid that was ever captured on our stem and rock-bound coast.”
The zeal of the barker entered his spirit. It had been a long time since he had faced an audience.
“This stupendous attraction, gents, that has just been secured for Look’s Leviathan Menagerie is the only living specimen of the American Mermaidissus in captivity to-day. She has flowing hair in which she wraps herself as in a mantle of the purest silk, and she is fresh from the royal courts of the king of the seas. She was captured off our aforesaid rocky coast by the bravest sailor that ploughs the ocean blue”—Bodfish was edging through the crowd, his face working with mighty wrath that he did not dare to give rein to. The showman beamed on him. “Yes, gents, captured in a single-handed conflict by that brave sailor, Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish, of the ‘Effort.’ And now he will be pleased to give you full particulars of that gigantic struggle in the waters of old ocean. As for me I shall have to be movin’ on to where immense and delighted audiences await me.”
He started to climb over the wheel, tipping a wink at Peak, and the crowd turned open-mouthed to Bodfish. The instant the showman’s back was turned that infuriated individual rushed forward, dealt Hiram a mighty kick, and when the showman turned, bonneted him in his tall hat, and then ran like a deer off the wharf and across the decks of a nest of fishing schooners that were packed in at one of the docks.
Hiram worked off his hat and straightened it, gazing after the fleeing Bodfish without a word. But his face was gray and rigid with rage. Then he climbed to his seat and gazed afresh on the skipper, scuttling across the decks.
“Aforesaid brave and intrepid sailor seems to have had his brain turned by his wonderful success as a mermaid capturer,” he grated. “It—it’s——” he choked and paused. “It’s too bad!” he managed to growl at last, and then snatched the reins from Peak’s hands and drove off up the alley at a stiff pace, leaving a very much mystified crowd behind him.