Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/328

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THE QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.
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the tail gave way, and they had no time to attend to serious things. I called in a couple of policemen and had the whole lot arrested for breach of the peace, and it being by that time about the hour for closing, I induced everybody to leave by offering them their money back. You can bet I felt relieved when the last man had gone, for if the crowd had undertook to clean out the place they would have killed the Dwarf for certain.

"'I don't so much mind giving up the monkey business,' said the Dwarf to me that evening, 'for I was beginning to get tired of it; but I do hate to quit without ever having got hold of a wig. I've had more than thirty bonnets, and fifteen spectacles, but I've never been able to grab any man's wig, though I've come near it two or three times. Well, I suppose we can't have everything here to please us. I've had a good time while it lasted, and I suppose I ought to be satisfied. But I should like to have stole just one wig.'

"He was the most intelligent 'Freak' I ever knew, and that steel tail of his was a mighty smart invention; but I told him that, after considering all things, I should expect him to stick to the legitimate, and should refuse to give my sanction to any more plans for deluding the public, seeing as they are nearly always failures in the long run."

W. L. Alden.