ment from the beginning that this clause in
their bill of requirements would get me into trouble, for I knew no more
about band music than a he goat knows about the book of common prayer.

"'I do the cymbals,' says I.

"'What!' snorts Cap., rearing up; 'I thought you wrote that you played
brass?'

"'Well,' says I, 'ain't cymbals brass?'

"It must have been my cold nerve that won Cap.'s regard, for he placed
me as 'curio hall' lecturer and advertising man at twenty a week.

"The museum of Sheldon & McClintock proved to be a great notch. More
fake freaks were thought out, worked up and exhibited during the course
of that winter season than I would care to count. Then there was a small
theater attached in which they put on very bad specialties and where
painful-voiced young men and women warbled sentimental ballads about
their childhood homes and stuff of that character. These got about ten
dollars a week and had to do about thirty turns a day; they lived in
their make-up and got so accustomed to grease paint before the end of
their engagements that they felt only half dressed without it.

"The trick made money, and in about a year McClintock cut loose and went
into a patent promoting scheme.

"Shortly afterward the first 'continuous house' was opened in St. Louis,
and the novelty of the thing was a body blow to Cap. He made a good
fight, but lost money every day; and at last he imparted to me in
confidence that if business did not improve he could see himself getting
out the shells and limbering up on them preparatory to going out and
facing the world once more.

"'The bank will stand for three hundred thousand dollars' worth more of
my checks,' says he, 'and after they're used up I'm done.'

"He began to cut down expenses with the reckless energy of a man who saw
the poor-house looming ahead for him; the results was that his bad shows
grew worse, and the attendance wasn't enough to dust off the seats. The
biggest item of expense about the place was 'Mighty Mardo,' the
boa-constrictor; his diet was live rabbits, and a twenty-foot snake with
a body as thick as a four-inch pipe can dispose of good and plenty of
them when he takes the notion. Cap. began to feed him live rats, and the
mighty one soon began to show the effects of it.

"'He'll die on you,' says I to Cap. one day.

"'Let him,' says he; 'the rabbits stay cut out.'

"One day a fellow came along with a high-schooled horse that he wanted
to sell. He ha