'Not I,' was my fervent reply; 'I'm satisfied to leave lecturing to those who have a reputation, and to earn my bread and butter in a, for me, more legitimate way. But what is it you have in view?'
'Come and see me this evening, when I am at leisure, and I'll tell you what my enterprise is. Meantime, will you sell me your lecture? I can't afford to pay much for it, but I'll agree to settle your hotel bill if you'll part with it. Not that I think it's worth it, but you need to be helped somehow right away.'
I jumped at the chance, and thanked my friend heartily. He asked if I would please go and send the landlord to him, and I retired to perform that errand.
I was punctual to my appointment in the evening, and listened to the project my editorial angel had in view; a plan by which he proposed to inflict a lesson on the negligent Tyrians, and at the same time replenish my purse. He explained to me the part I was to perform in this enterprise, and I found I could enter heartily into the spirit of it. We shook hands in the best of humors, and parted that evening understanding each other perfectly.
III.—HE MAKES A HIT IN TYRE.
The next day, the entire jobbing facilities of the Times office were brought into requisition, and toward evening a mammoth bill was posted around the town, which read as follows:—
MONS. BELITZ'S
CELEBRATED AND MAGNIFICENT EXHIBITION,
THE GREAT TRAVELING HUMBURG!
The most wonderful entertainment, whether
CAININE, PRISTINE, OR QUININE,
ever brought before the astonished Public's visual organs!!!
The avant courier of this monster troupe has the honor of announcing to the ladies and gentlemen of Tyre, that Mons. BELITZ, accompanied by his entire retinue of attachés and supes, Female Dancers and Dogs, Operatic Vocalists and Vixens, Royal Musicians and Monsters, Bengal [pg 124] Tigers and Time-servers, Magicians and Madmen, Flying Birds, Swimming Fishes, Walking Cats and Dogs, Crawling Reptiles, and various other extraordinary and impossible arrangements, the like of which never before appeared in Bog county, until the arrival of the present occasion, to wit:—
AT GRECIAN HALL, TYRE,
On Saturday Evening, December 22, 1859.
—> LOOK AT THE ARRAY OF TALENT! <—
MONS. BELITZ,
the celebrated Magician from Egypt, performer general to
THE GRAND FOO FOO,
and professor of the Black Art to all the crowned heads of the Cannibal Islands and Ham Sandwichlands!!
MADEMOISELLE HELIOTROPE,
the charming Danseuse from all the city theatres, but most recently from the Imperial Deutscher Yolks Garten, Liverpool, Ireland!
SIGNOR STRAWSTEKOWSKI,
the celebrated Demagogue and Snake eater, whose unrivaled feat with a living Gryllus, whose fangs have never been extracted, fills thousands with awe and delight!
YANKEE SHOCKWIG,
the mirth-splitting and side-provoking delineator of down-east horse peculiarities. Must be appreciated to be seen.
HERR BALAMSASS,
the distinguished Vocalist from Italy, whose lower notes, as recently discovered by the celebrated examination before the Council of Trent, reach so far below the epigastrium as to be utterly inaudible to the most acute auricular organs!
BRUDDER GEORGE AND AUNTY CLAWSON,
the never-to-be-sufficiently-equaled delineators of Ethiopian eccentricities, whose performances during the winter of 1869 delighted overflowing houses in the Cape Cod Lunatic Asylum for 4000 consecutive nights.
BENJAMIN BOLT, Esq.,
the justly-celebrated trumpeter from the splendid orchestral band attached to Marnum's Buseum, New York city, for the past fifty years!
FANTADIMO FANTODIMUS,
the graceful and efficient master of ceremonies, whose efforts have been awarded by the entire available population of Blackwell's Island, in a series of resolutions of the most pathetic description!
Owing to future engagements, the stay of this troupe in Tyre will be
POSITIVELY FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY,
when the Programme will be specified in small bills of the evening.
Admittance, 25 cents. Doors open at 6; Master of Ceremonies makes his bow at 7.
PROF. BROWN D. GREEN, AGENT.
Against the advice of the editor of the Times, I dispatched an agent over to Sidon, with a supply of blanked bills from the same form, with instructions to arrange for a similar 'sell' on the following Monday evening in that charming village.
I was sufficiently busy during the interval that lay between this and Saturday evening in rehearsing my part for the entertainment thus advertised. I was not entirely free from doubts of the success of a 'take-in' so palpable and ridiculous, and even if a house-full of numbsculls should gather, I deemed the experiment a dangerous one for me; but my editorial friend took the risk, remarking that he had calculated his chances, and [pg 125] knew what he was about. Nevertheless, it was not without some trepidation that I entered Grecian Hall by the private door, at a little before seven o'clock, and laid my hat behind the temporary curtain that had been erected for the accommodation of the great Humbug Troupe. Applying my eye to a chink in the cloth, I perceived that the hall was crowded to suffocation. My editorial friend sat in a prominent position near the stage, and the audience was manifesting those signs of impatience which seem to be equally orthodox among the news-boys in the pit of the old Bowery Theatre and the coarse young rustics who go to 'shows' in the back villages of ruraldom. I tinkled a bell. The uproar grew quiet. I drew aside my curtain, and made my bow, amid the silent wonderment of my auditors. Then I said:—
'Ladies and gentlemen: You now see before you the redoubtable Fantadimo Fantodimus, master of ceremonies for the Great Humbug Troupe. You also see before you, ladies and gentlemen, Mons. Belitz, the renowned magician, Mademoiselle Heliotrope, the graceful danseuse, Signor Strawstekowski, Herr Balamsass; and, in short, ladies and gentlemen, you see before you the sum and substance of the Great Humbug Troupe, as it exists in all its original splendor. We salute you!