Part 15 (1/2)

But Rajah knew all about riding in box-cars. He walked up the plank after us just like we was a pair of Noahs. Goggles was sent off over the road with the cart, all by his lonesome.

I've traveled a good deal with real sports, and once I came back from St. Louis with the delegates to a national convention, but this was my first trip in an animal car. It wasn't so bad, though, and it was all over by daylight next morning. There wasn't anyone in sight but milkmen and bakers' boys as we drove down Bellevue-ave., with Rajah grippin' the rear axle of our cab. I don't know how he felt about b.u.t.tin' into Newport society at that time of day, but I looked for a cop to pinch us as second-story men.

We fetches up at the swellest kind of a ranch you ever saw, iron gates to it like a storage warehouse, and behind that trees and bushes and lawn, like a slice out of Central Park. Pinckney wakes up the lodge-keeper and after he lets down the bars we pikes around to the stable. It looked more like an Episcopal church than a stable, and we didn't find any horses inside, anyway, only seven different kinds of gasoline carts. The stable-hands all seemed to know Pinckney and to be proud of it, but they s.h.i.+ed some at Rajah and me.

”This is part of a little affair I'm managing for Mrs. Toynbee,” says Pinckney. ”Professor McCabe and Rajah will stay here for a day or two, strictly _in cog._, you know.”

What Pinckney says seemed to be rules and regulations there, so Rajah and I got the glad hand after that. And for a stable visit it was the best that ever happened. I've stopped at lots of two-dollar houses that would have looked like Bowery lodgings alongside of that stable. And one of the boys thought he could handle the mitts some. Yes, that _in cog._ business wasn't so worse, at fifty per.

All this time Pinckney was as busy as the man at the ticket window, only droppin' in once or twice after dark to see if Rajah was stayin' good.

The show was being knocked into shape and Pinckney was master of ceremonies. I knew he was goin' to work Rajah in somehow; but he didn't have any time to put me next and I never tumbled until he'd sprung the trick.

About the third day things began to hum around the Toynbee place. A gang of tentmen came with a round top and put it up. They strung a lot of side-show banners too, and built lemonade-stands in the shrubbery. If it hadn't been for the Johnnie boys in hot clothes strollin' around you'd thought a real one-ring wagon-show had struck town. But say, that bunch of clowns and b.u.m bareback riders had papas who could have given 'em a Forepaugh outfit every birthday.

Early next morning I got the tip from Pinckney to sneak Rajah out of the stable and over into the dressin'-tent. The way that old chap's eyes glistened when he saw the banners and things was a wonder. He sure did know a heap, that Rajah. He was as excited and anxious as a new chorus girl at a fall opening; but when I gave him the word he held himself in.

Just before the grand entry I got a peek at the house, and it was a swell mob: same folks that you'll see at the Horse Show, only there wasn't no dollar-a-head push to rubber at 'em, as they wa'n't on exhibition. They was just out for fun, and I guess they know how to have it, seein' that's their steady job.

Number four on the programme was put down as: ”Mr. Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce, with his wonderfully life-like elephant Rajah.” I heard the barker givin' his song an' dance about the act, and he got a great hand.

Then Pinckney goes on and the crowd howls.

You see, he'd had a loose canvas suit, like pajamas, made for Rajah, and stuffed out with straw. It was painted to look something like elephant hide, but some of the straw had been left sticking through the seams.

With Rajah sewed inside of this, he looked like a rank imitation of himself.

”Fake, fake!” they yells at 'em as they showed up. ”Who's playing the hind legs, Lionel?” and a lot of things like that. They threw peanuts and apples at Rajah, and generally enjoyed themselves.

Then all of a sudden Pinckney pulls the puckering string, yanks off the padding, and out walks old Rajah as chipper as Billy Jerome. Fetch 'em?

Well, say! You've seen a gang of school-kids when the sleight-of-hand man makes a pa.s.s over the egg in the hat and pulls out a live rabbit?

These folks acted the same way. They howled, they hee-hawed, they jumped up and down on the seats.

They'd been lookin' for the same old elephant with two men inside, the good old chestnut that they'd been tryin' to laugh over for years, and when this philopena was sprung on 'em they were as tickled as a baby with a jack-in-the-box. It wouldn't have got more'n one laugh out of a crowd of every-day folks, but that swell mob just went wild over it. It was a new stunt, done special for them by one of their own crowd.

Was Pinckney it? Why, he was the whole show! They kept him and Rajah in the ring for half an hour, and they let loose every time Rajah lifted his trunk or napped his ears. When he got 'em quiet Pinckney made a speech. He said he was happy to say that the grand door prize, as announced on the hand-bills, had been drawn by Mrs. Jeremiah Toynbee, and that Rajah was the prize. Would she take it with her, or have it sent?

You've heard of Mrs. Jerry. She's a real sport, she is. She's the one that stirred up all that fuss by takin' her tame panther down to Bailey's Beach with her. And Mrs. Jerry wasn't goin' back on her reputation or missin' any two-page ads. in the papers.

”You may send him, please,” says Mrs. Jerry.

Maybe they thought that was all a part of Pinckney's fake. They didn't know how hard we'd tried to unload Rajah. We didn't do any lingerin'

around. While the show was goin' on we sneaks out of the back of the tent with Rajah and across to the stable. The rest was easy. He'd got so used to seein' me there that I reckon he'd sized it up for my regular hang-out, so when we ties him up fast and slides out easy, one at a time, he never mistrusts.

”Professor,” says Pinckney, ”it seems to me that this is an excellent opportunity for us to go away.”

”It's all of that,” says I, ”and let's make it a quick s.h.i.+ft.”

We did. Goggles shook us up some on the way down, but we hit Broadway in time for breakfast.