ttling with people who
pretended to be injured when the tent blew down at Poughkeepsie, and the
hands and performers are kicking because we are a month behind on
salaries, and they get drunk whenever any jay will buy for them.
Everybody gives passes to everybody that wants to get in the show, so
the box office man has a sinecure, and people chase us from town to town
for money for board, and hay and everything.

All through New Jersey we showed to claim agents and creditors, and
didn't take in money enough to buy meat for the animals. He said the
animals had all taken cold, and lay around dormant, and didn't take any
interest in the business, and the manager told pa he must think of
something to wake the animals up. Pa said he would leave it to me to
wake 'em up, and get some ginger into them. I told pa if I had five
dollars to spend I could make every animal jump like a box car. Pa gave
me the money, and I went and bought five pounds of Scotchsnuff, and
divided it up into ounce packages, and started during the afternoon
performance at Wilmington, Del., to wake up the animals.

There is something peculiar about animals, if you try to give them
anything that they think you want them to take, you can't drive it down
them with a pile driver, but if you try to hide something where they can
reach it, they watch you out of one eye, and when you go away they look
at you as much as to say: "O, you think you are smart, don't you?" Then
they will go and dig it up, and play with it, and eat it if they want
to.

I took my first package of snuff to the lion's cage, and he was the
sickest and most disgusted looking lion you ever saw, acting like a man
who has taken a severe cold, and wants to kill anybody that looks at
him. The lion lay on the straw, stretched out full length, paying no
attention to the crowd that passed his cage, and acting as though he
wanted a hot whisky and his feet soaked in mustard water. When he was
not looking I hid the package of snuff under the straw, and rattled the
straw a little, and he opened his eyes and looked at me as much as to
say: "You can't fool old Shadrack, for I am onto you." I walked away
behind the hyena cage, and Mr. Lion got up and stretched himself, and
walked to the place where I put the paper of snuff, put his foot on it
and broke the paper, and then he put his nose down and sniffed a sniff
that drew the whole of the snuff up into his nose and lungs, and insides
generally.

Gee, bu