THE CANDY BUTCHER TALKS ABOUT A LOVE AFFAIR AND HIS ENCOUNTER WITH THE BUCKWHEAT MAN.
The Candy Butcher of the Big Show looked like a cut-out in a Sunday supplement. He was the best dressed man in the outfit, and no matter what he was doing and where he was doing it he always looked fixed up, and he felt it.
His pants were always creased whether the show was doing a run in the large city or playing the one-nighters on a single-track jerk-water beyond the Wabash. He never wore his coat when working, and his loud linen would have stopped a limited with one flash from the tower. He was there with the pink underwear, and his stockings had more kinds of color in them than the side of the band wagon when the season was new. The Candy Butcher was always dressed, and when he got behind the counter to pull off the “Five tonight, good people!” gag he would have made the window of an East Side gents’ furnishing store drop the curtain. The Candy Butcher didn’t mix in much with the men in the outfit. He had a chemical moustache that he zephyred with a velvet voice, and he was always aces with the ladies. When Section One was pulling out for a long Sunday jump, be sure of Him for the day coach with the girls. He was good at that, and, while he didn’t always make a landing, he managed generally to get his bowline fast to the pier before the current caught him.
He always wore his coat in the meal tent, but he took it off right after supper and carried it on his arm. The make-up didn’t miss the ulster much, for he had on a vest that was three strikes and out for rainbow colors—one of those rum omelette tinted things that a Philadelphia button buyer puts on for Saturday night when he’s waiting at the stage door for some spotlight Sadie. He was there with the cheap tailors, all right.
The squatters on the ring bank were just settling for the afternoon gab while the equestrian director, sore because he couldn’t get away to keep a date, was rearranging the horse acts with a piece of a pencil on the back of the night’s card. The Candy Butcher came through a crevice in the tent and stopped to talk to the Saw Dust Spreader, who was standing behind the wardrobe basket pulling on his plush pants.
“What you dressin’ for?” said the Candy Butcher.
“Oh, they’re gettin’ cheap,” said the Saw Dust Spreader. “I’ve got to double for an object holder, an’ I’m up for the leaps right after the entree.”
“What do you care,” said the Candy Butcher, “long as peppermint is striped?”
Then he laughed at his own little trade journal joke. He was full of those. He was always reading song books and joke budgets when waiting to get up on the blue boards to sell tickets for the concert after the show. He came across the track and joined the gang.
“Gee!” said the Side Show Spieler, who was always good on the opening line, “youse dressed up for fair tonight! Looks like youse goin’ to a birthday party.”