Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/106

up wedding that shouldn't cost them a cent, and of course she insisted on waiting.

"When she went into the tattooed business, the Wild Man, being engaged to her, naturally insisted on doing the stencilling. I know you won't give it away, so I don't mind telling you that the tattooing is put on every Monday with a stencil plate and brush, and is generally washed off on Saturday night when it begins to get faded. It takes about two dozen different stencil plates to do a girl up in style, and give her a variety of patterns. These plates were always kept in the property-room, and when Monday morning came around the Wild Man would get them out and tattoo his lady-love as gently as if he was a great artist, painting a first-class, hand-made picture. He took about twice as long as was necessary for the job, and I will say that when he was done, he turned out the best Tattooed Girl that Chicago ever saw.

The dwarf.

"Well, one day I hired a Chinese Sword Swallower. He was a Frenchman, though I didn't know it when I hired him. If I had, he would never have come into my show, for a Frenchman is the most troublesome 'freak' in the whole profession, not excepting even the Dwarf, and he's, generally speaking, a holy terror. Naturally, this Frenchman began to make love to the Tattooed Girl. I don't blame him for that, for, being a Frenchman, he had to act according to his nature; but he knew she was engaged to the Wild Man, and he had no business to meddle with an engaged girl, especially as there was the Fat Woman who hadn't anybody attached to her, and would have been thankful even for a Frenchman.

"Now this Sword Swallower was a rather handsome young fellow, with lots of swagger about him, and he gathered that Tattooed Girl in without the least trouble. She threw over the Wild Man and wouldn't have anything more to do with him. She wouldn't even let him tattoo her, and said that the Sword Swallower was twice the artist that he was in handling a stencil brush. The poor chap came to me and said that he had made up his mind to commit suicide or to leave the business. He said that Jemima, for that was the girl's name, seemed to hate him. 'Once she used to admire me in my great meat-eating act,' said the Wild Man. 'Now she says that it is perfectly disgusting to eat raw meat, and she can't endure my black paint. She tells me that it's a low line of business to be a Wild Man, and that she thinks that sword swallowing is perfectly lovely. I say it ain't nothing of the sort. A sword ain't half as digestible as raw beef, and I don't care who says it is.'

"'You give her up, my boy,' I said. 'Don't waste your time over her. You're in the very front rank in your line, and that is something to be proud of.'

"'I know it,' said he; 'but I can't stay in this show if that Sword Swallower stays. My contract will be up next month, and you might as well let me off now. If you don't, there is nothing for me except the cold and silent grave.'

"'You drop that nonsense!' said I. 'The grave's no sort of place for a man of talent like you. Leave this business to me, and I promise you that inside of a week Jemima will give that Frenchman his walking ticket, and you'll have the field to yourself again.'

"He was a trusting little beggar, and had no end of confidence in me. What I said brought up his spirits again, and that afternoon he howled better than he had ever howled before, and two women fainted away when he jumped at them with his spear, as if he was going to run them through then and there.

"Now I happened to have a lot of stencil plates that I used to mark boxes with, and knowing that the Frenchman couldn't read or write, I felt pretty sure that I could put up a job on him that would settle his business with the Tattooed Girl. In the course of the day I took six of her stencil plates out of the drawer where they were kept and put six of mine on the top of the pile in