CHAPTER III.
Meeting Prof. Carter—The Music Scheme—Flowers and Novelties—The Ladies—The Soap Racket—Street Gags and Jokes—The Sinking Vessel.
I did not allow myself to be troubled over the disappearance of the other members of the Milton Combination. In such an affair every tub has to stand on its own bottom, and I had no visible baggage which the hall owner could attach, or any irate landlord claim as his own until all scores were paid.
I went around to the hotel and coolly informed the proprietor that the manager and his partner had skipped, leaving my salary unpaid, but that, fortunately, I had enough to settle my own modest bill for the night, and that if he chose I would pay it then and there. Despite his ill humor over the loss of a few dollars, I think I must have succeeded in arousing his sympathy, for he touched my purse but lightly, and treated me pleasantly enough.
It is quite possible I would have gone with the rest of the Combination, or started out on a moon-light journey by myself, had it not been that I wanted to see more of that fakir. I knew now that he was stopping at the same hotel, and thought I recognized in him a kindred spirit, with whom it might be well to confer. He came in half an hour or so after I did, and, being in high good humor over his evening’s work, I did not find him at all hard to approach.
Of course, at the outset, I was cautious about letting him see my motive, and I opened the conversation by saying in a jocular manner that I had to thank him for breaking up our show. The people were not going to pay to see it when they could get something as good or better outside for nothing.
“See here, pard, you don’t mean to say you’re in earnest? I’m business to the hub, you understand; but I meant just what I told them over there when I said I wouldn’t make a sale after you began. How hard are you up against it? I’m willing to make a fair divvy.”
He put his hand in his pocket as he spoke, and I guess he actually meant it.
I told him I was all right and that he needed to feel no concern. I had been opposed to the venture here from the start, and was not at all averse to a separation from my companions, as I was about tired of the show business, anyhow.