the train rumbled into colombo in the late afternoon. i made my way at once through the pattering throng to almeida’s. in the roofless dining-room sat askins, puffing furiously at his clay pipe and scribbling with a sputtering pen in one of several half-penny notebooks scattered on the table before him. at the further end lolled the swede and two fellow-beachcombers, staring at the writer as at the performer of some mighty miracle.
“doing?” grinned the irishman, in answer to my question. “oh! just another of my tales. you know you can’t knock around british-india for twenty years without picking up a few things. about the time ole took his first bath i began jotting down some of the mix-ups i’ve wandered into. that lot went to amuse davy jones when a tub i was playing second engineer on threw up the sponge in the bay of bengal. later on i knocked the best of the yarns together again, and i tear off another now and then when life gets dull.
“published? oh, i may shove them off one of these days on some penny weekly. but if i don’t, the coroner can have them for his trouble when i come to furl my mainsheet. he won’t find anything else.”
“vonderful!” cried ole, with a dr. watson accent, “i haf study in der school an’ i rhead sometimes a story in der dog-vatch; min der man vitch can make der stories! vonderful, by gott!”
“by the way, franck,” said askins, gathering the notebooks together, “how about the yellow-birds who tried to shave your sky-piece over in kandy?”
“why, who has been telling you—?” i gasped.
“haven’t heard a word,” replied the irishman; “but i knew they’d flag you. how did it turn out?”
i related my experiences with the temple priests.
“it’s an old game out here,” mused askins. “in the good old days, whenever one of the boys went broke, it was get converted. not all played out yet either. there’s a bunch of one-time beachcombers 273scattered among the burmese monasteries. an old pal of mine wears the yellow up in nepal. no graft about him, though. he’s a firm believer.
“now and then a down-and-outer, especially over bombay side, turns mohammedan. but most of ’em don’t take to the surgical operation, and the cross-legged one remains the favorite. of course, there’s always the missionaries, too, but there’s not much in it for a white man to turn christian. there was good money in the mohammedan game before it was worked out. there’s a little yet. of course, you know you won’t get a red by tying up with the rice-bowlers, but it’s a job for life—if you behave.”
“huh! yank,” roared the swede, peering at me through the smoke, “you get burn some, eh, playin’ mit der monkeys in der jungle? pretty soon you ban sunstroke. here, i make you trade.”
he pointed to the tropical helmet on the table before him.
“you’re on,” i responded.
“he ban good hat,” said ole, proudly; “i get him last week from der swede consul. min he too damn big. what you give?”
for answer i tossed my cap across the table.
“nah!” protested the scandinavian, “i sell him for tventy cents or i take der cap an’ vun coat.”
i mounted to the floor above and returned with a cotton jacket that i had left in the keeping of askins.
“how’s this?” i demanded.
“he ban all right,” answered ole, slipping into it; “der oder vas all broke by der sleeves.”
i donned the helmet and strolled down to the landing jetty, where “the boys” were accustomed to gather of an evening to enjoy the only cool breeze that ever invaded colombo. few had been the changes in the beachcomber ranks during my absence. amid the drowsy yarning there sounded often a familiar refrain:—“the circus is coming.” no one knew just when; but then, one doesn’t worry in ceylon. if he hasn’t rice, he eats bananas. if he can’t find work, it is a joy merely to lie in the shade and breathe.
the publicity of the cricket grounds had led me to seek other sleeping-quarters. opposite the shipping-office, in the heart of the european section, lay gordon gardens, a park replete with fountains, gay flower pots, and grateful shade. by day it was the rendezvous of the élite of the city, white and black. by night its gates were closed, and stern placards warned trespassers to beware. small hindrance 274these, however, for in all colombo i had no better friend than bobby, who patroled the flanking street. under the trees the night dew never fell, the ocean breeze laughed at the toil of the punkah-wallah, the fountains gave bathroom privileges, and prowling natives disturbed me no more; for bobby was owl-eyed. this new lodging had but one drawback. i must be up and away with the dawn; for within pea-shooting distance of my chamber towered the white house of ceylon, and governor blake was reputed an early riser and no friend of beachcombers.
one by one there drifted ashore in colombo four fellow-countrymen, who, following my example, soon won for gordon gardens the sub-title “american park hotel.” model youths, perhaps, would have shunned this quartet, for each plead guilty to a checkered past. as for myself, i found them boon companions.
henderson, the oldest, was a deserter from the asiatic squadron. arnold, middle-aged, laden with the spoils—in drafts—of a political career in new york, awaited in ceylon the conclusion of the japanese-russian war before hastening to port arthur to open an american saloon.
down at the point of the breakwater, where we were wont to gather often for a dip in the brine, i made the acquaintance of marten. he was a boy of twenty-five, hailing from tacoma, washington. arriving in the orient some years before with a record as a champion swimmer, he had spent two seasons in diving for pearls on the coromandel coast. not one of the native striplings who surrounded each arriving steamer, clamoring for pennies, was more nearly amphibious than marten. it was much more to watch his submarine feats than to swim that the beachcombers sallied forth each afternoon from their shady retreats.
we swam cautiously, the rest of us, for the harbor was infested with sharks. on the day after my arrival, the worcestershire had buried in the european cemetery of colombo the upper half of what had been one of my companions in the “glory-hole.” the appearance of a pair of black fins out across the sun-flecked waters was certain to send us scrambling up the rough face of the breakwater.
the rickshaw men of colombo
american wanderers who slept in the gordon gardens of colombo. left to right: arnold, ex-new york ward heeler; myself; “dick haywood”; an english lad; and marten of tacoma, washington
but not so marten. while we fled, he swam straight for the coming monsters of the deep. when they were almost upon him he dived with a shout of hilarity and a dash of foam into their very 275midst, to come to the surface smiling and unscathed, perhaps far out across the harbor, perhaps under our dangling feet. how he put the sharks to flight no man knew. the “gang” was divided in its opinion between the assertion of the swimmer himself that he “tickled ’em under the belly,” and the conviction of askins that he had merely to show them his face—for marten was not afflicted with manly beauty.
the last member of our party was a bully born on the bowery, younger in years than marten, older in rascality than henderson. as to his name, he owned to several, and assured us at the first meeting that “dick haywood” would do well enough for the time being. his chief claim to fame was his own assertion that he had escaped from sing sing after serving two years of a seven-year sentence. the story of his “get-away,” with which he often entertained twilight gatherings on the jetty, smacked of veracity. for all an innate skepticism, i found no reason to disagree with the conclusion of the “gang” that his “song and dance” was true. certainly there was no doubt among his most casual acquaintances of his ability to get into sing sing. he was clever enough, fortune favoring, to have broken out.
fleeing his native land, haywood had brought up in bombay and, having enlisted in the british army, was assigned to a garrison in rajputana. obviously, so temperamental a youth must soon weary of the guard duty and pipe-clay polishing that make up the long, long indian day of tommy atkins. he engineered a second “get-away.” the enlistment papers and a buttonless uniform in his bundle certified to this adventure. in the course of time he reached calcutta, chiefly through the fortune of finding himself alone in a compartment of the northwest mail with a parsee merchant of more worldly wealth than physical prowess. a rumor of this escapade soon drove him to madras. there his unconventional habits again asserted themselves and fortune temporarily deserted him. he was taken in the bazaars in the act of “weeding the leathers.”
once more he escaped, this time from a crowded court room, and finding india no longer attractive, turned southward to ceylon, hoping to make a final “get-away” by sea.
few of “the boys” gave credence to these last tales. but they were true. for a newcomer in the ranks reported on the day of his arrival, before he had laid eyes on the culprit, that madras was 276placarded with descriptions—they fitted haywood exactly—of a man charged with desertion, robbery, pick-pocketing, and escape from custody.
awaking penniless on the morning following my return from kandy, i decided to investigate a charity system in vogue in british-india. kind-hearted sahibs, members of a national association known as the “friend-in-need society,” maintain in the larger cities a refuge for stranded europeans and eurasians. above the door of each society building appear the initial letters of its title. the inventive wanderer, for other reasons than this, perhaps, has dubbed the kindly institution the “finish.”
in colombo the society offered only out-door relief, meal tickets distributed by its president or secretary. i found the first of these officials to be the youthful editor of colombo’s english newspaper, with offices a ship’s length from gordon gardens. tickets, however, had he none.
“this office was too blooming handy,” he explained, throwing aside his blue pencil to mop his brow. “if the hooligans loafing in the gardens or on the jetty had an idle hour on their hands, they spent it inventing tales and strolled up here to see how much they could get out of the society by springing them on me. there was more than one of them, too, that i’d have taken on the staff if he could have dished up as good a yarn every week. but the thing got to be a fad, and, when i found that a couple of fellows that applied to me had their pockets full of dibs at the time, i decided to let the secretary, the baptist minister, do the distributing. his parsonage is four miles from the harbor, and the man that will walk that far in ceylon deserves all he can get out of him.”
far out beyond the leper hospital, where putrescent mortals peered dejectedly through the palings, i came upon the bungalow of the reverend peacock, set well back from the red highway in a grove of palms. several old acquaintances, including askins, had assembled. one of them stood abjectly, hat in hand, before the judgment-seat at the end of the veranda.
the secretary was a man of pugilistic build, with the voice of a side-show barker. his very roar seemed an assertion that he was an infallible judge of human nature. yet, strangely enough, he treated most liberally the professional vagrants, and turned away empty-handed those whose stories were told stammeringly for want of 277practice. among those who appeared before him that morning, for example, were two grafters, askins and myself; and an italian sailor, really deserving of assistance.
the irishman chose to state his case in the language of university circles.
“surely,” cried the reverend gentleman, in delight, “this must be the first time a man of your parts has found himself in this predicament?”
“verily, yes, reverend peacock,” quoth the learned son of erin, with an unrestrainable sigh, “the first indeed. as i can’t count the other times, they don’t count,” he murmured to himself. “it’s the asthma, reverend sir.”
“i shall be glad to make yours a special case,” said the secretary; “step aside into my study.”
i advanced to tell my tale and received eight tickets, twice the usual number. a moment later the italian was driven from the parsonage grounds with the nearest approach to an oath that a minister is entitled to include in his vocabulary.
the tickets, worth four cents each, entitled the holder to as many meals of currie and rice, tea, bananas, and cakes in a native shop chosen by the society; it was the poorest in town. a faulty management was suggested, too, by the fact that the proprietor was easily induced to make good the society vouchers in a neighboring arrack-shop.
three day later, as dawn was breaking, i climbed the fence of the “american park hotel” and strolled away to the beach for a dip in the surf. breakfast would have been more to the point, but my last ticket was spent. one by one, “the boys,” little suspecting that this was to prove the red-letter day of that colombo season, turned back into the squat city; and as the sun mounted higher i retreated to the freight wharves, where the vague promise of a job had been held out to me the day before.
the dock superintendent was slow in coming. at ten o’clock i was still stretched out in the shade of his veranda, when i was suddenly aroused by a shout from the shore end of the pier. i sprang up to see the swede struggling to keep a footing in the maelstrom of bullock carts, coolie carriers, and shrieking stevedores, and waving his arms wildly above his head.
“circus!” he cried, “der circus is coom, franck! creeket 278ground!” and, turning about, he dashed off at a pace that is rarely equaled in ceylon by white men who look forward to a long and active life.
i dived into the throng and fought my way to the gate. the scandinavian was already far down the red driveway leading to the native section. among such a company of out-of-works as graced colombo at that season, there was small chance of employment to those who lingered. i dashed after the flying norseman and overtook him at the entrance to the public playground.
a circus at the hour of its arrival presents a chaotic scene under the best of circumstances. when it has just disembarked from a sea voyage, in a land swarming with half-civilized brown men, its disorder is oppressive. the center of the cricket field was a wild confusion of animal cages, rolls of canvas, scattered tent poles, and all else that goes to make up a traveling menagerie, not forgetting those pompous persons whose hectic garb make them as effective advertising mediums as walking billboards.
at the moment, these romantic beings were doing garrison duty; for the recumbent circus was in a state of siege. around it surged an ever-increasing multitude of natives, peering, pushing, chattering, falling back terror-stricken before the frenzied circus men who, armed with iron-headed tent stakes, charged back and forth across the space; but sweeping out upon the scattered paraphernalia again after each onslaught.
we battled our way into the inner circle and shouted an offer of our services to the blaspheming manager. he was a typical circus boss; irish, of course, bullet-headed, of powerful build, and free of movement, with a belligerent cast of countenance that proclaimed his readiness to engage in a “scrap” at any time that he could find leisure for such entertainment. tugging at a heap of canvas, he peered at us between his out-stretched legs, and shouted above the din of battle:—
“yis, i want four min! white wans! are you fellows sailors? there’s a hill of a lot o’ climbin’ to do.”
“both a. bs.,” i answered.
“all right! if ye want the job, bring two more.”
we turned to scrutinize the sea of humanity about us. there was not a white face to be seen.
“ve look by almeida’s!” shouted the swede, as we charged the mob.
before we could escape, however, i caught sight of a familiar slouch hat well back in the crowd, and a moment later askins stood beside 279us. behind him came dick haywood and, our squad complete, we dashed back to the boss.
“well!” he roared, “i pay a quid a week an’ find yerselves! want it?”
“a pound a week,” muttered askins, “that’s more’n two chips a day. aye! we’ll take it.”
“all right! jump onto that center pole an’ get ’er up. if these niggers get in the way, brain ’em with a tent stake. stip lively now!”
the upper canvas was soon spread and a space roped off. the boss tossed a pick-ax at me and set me to grubbing holes for the seat supports. carefully and evenly i swung the tool up and down in an old maid’s stroke. the least slip would have broken a singhalese head, so closely did the natives press around me. to them the sight of a white man employed at manual labor was the source of as much astonishment as any of the wonders of the circus. few, indeed, had ever before seen a european manipulating heavier tools than pen or pencil. within an hour the news had spread abroad through the city that the circus had imported the novelty of the age, some “white coolies;” and all colombo and his wife omitted the afternoon siesta and trooped to the cricket ground to behold this reversal of society.
the mob that i drove from hole to hole increased rapidly. my mates, carrying seat boards or sawdust for the ring, were as seriously handicapped. haywood of the untamed temper, taking the caustic advice of the boss too literally, snatched up a tent stake and stretched two natives bleeding on the ground. even that brought small relief.
strange comments sounded in my ears; for the native who speaks english never loses an opportunity to display his learning. a pair at my elbow opened fire in the diction of schoolbooks:—
“this sight is to me astounding!” shrieked the high-caste youth to his older companion; “i have never before know that europeans can do such workings.”
“why, indeed, yes!” cried the babu. “in his home the sahib does just so strong work as our coolies, but because he is play cricket and tennis he is doing even stronger. he is not rich always and sitting in shade.”
“but do the white man not losing his caste when he is working like coolies?” demanded the youth. “why is this man work at such? is he perhaps prisoner that he disgraces himself lower than the keeper of the arrack-shop?”
280“truly, my friend, i not understand,” admitted the older man, a bit sadly, “but i am reading that in sahib’s country he is make the workings of coolie and yet is not coolie.”
there were others besides the native residents whose attention was attracted to the “white coolies.” here and there in the crowd i caught sight of a european scowling darkly at us; just why, i could not guess, unconscious of having done anything to provoke the ill-will of my race. in due time, however, i learned the cause of their displeasure.
when night fell, all was in readiness for the initial performance; though at the cost of a day’s work that we agreed could not be indulged in more than semi-annually, even for an inducement of “more than two chips.” the tents, large and small, were stretched, the circle of seats complete. rings, flying apparatus, properties, and lights were ready for use. a half-thousand chairs, reserved for europeans, had been ranged at the ring side, the cage of the performing lion bolted together, and the ticket booth set up at the entrance. the boss gave vent to a final snarl, called a ’rickshaw, and drove off to his hotel for dinner. luckily, askin’s credit was good in the favorite shop across the way. we ate our currie and rice quickly, and returned to stretch out on the grass at the players’ entrance.
our pipes were barely lighted when two europeans, dressed in snow-white garments, stepped forward out of the darkness. we recognized in them two englishmen connected with the lipton tea company.
“it strikes me, me men,” began one, in a high, querulous voice, “that you chaps should know better than to do coolie labor in sight of all the natives of the city.”
“what’s that?” i cried, in my surprise, though i heard askins chuckling behind me.
“i suppose you chaps have only come to ceylon,” suggested the other, in a more conciliatory tone. “you probably don’t realize what a different world this is out here. you cawn’t work at manual labor here, you know, the way you can in hyde park. why, you will destroy the prestige of every white man on the island, if—”
“you’ve stirred up a fine kettle of fish already,” burst out the first speaker. “but arthur, these chaps are not bank clerks. they cawn’t understand the sowt of language you talk to your stenographer, you knoaw. they are only sailors. let me tell them the trouble.
“now look heah, me men. this awfternoon my hindu servant stuck his head in at my office door, and shouted right out for me to go 281to the cricket ground and see the sahib coolies. by four o’clock he was talking back every time i called him to do an errand. to-night, blawst me, he was so slow in filling my pipe that i had to chuck a boot at him. by to-morrow morning i suppose he’ll tell me to prepare me own bawth, bah jove. this sort of thing, ye knoaw, is giving the natives the notion that they’re as good as englishmen.”
“think you’ll find,” said askins, puffing slowly at his broken pipe, “if you reflect a bit, that this unwonted arrogance in the aborigines and the noticeable decrease in their respect for europeans, which you attribute entirely to our alleged indiscretion, are very largely due to the recent victories of japan over russia.”
the swede snorted like a stalled winch. the boot-chucker peered through the darkness at the rags that covered askins, m. a. even “arthur” could not suppress a chuckle at his companion’s notion of a mere sailor’s vocabulary. before the other had recovered, he took up the broken thread of the sermon.
“reginald is right, me men, all the same. ye knoaw of all the castes out here only the very lowest work with their hands, and they are despised by every other class. why, the lowest caste in ceylon, ye knoaw, won’t undertake our meanest labor. we have to send over for tamil and hindu coolies. now the englishmen are at the top of this caste system. the natives look up to us as above their highest caste. if this highest class, then, does labor that would degrade those of their lowest caste, you can see where their reverence for white men would soon go.
“chaps have come out here at different times, missionaries especially, determined to treat the natives like equals, saying it was all rot and wrong to keep up this caste system. and they chatted with their servants, and patted the babies on the back, and sat at the same table with natives, and even planted their own gardens. and those who haven’t got knives in their ribs for hoodooing the children are looked upon as insane or degenerate, or as men being punished for some crime. why, if these people ceased to look upon us as their social superiors they’d drive us into the sea in a month. if you chaps want to stop long in colombo you’d better drop this circus job.”
“but if that’s all the work we can find on the whole blooming island?” i demanded.
“work!” cried reginald, excitedly, “why, blawst it! don’t work! better loaf than make us all lose caste with the natives.”
“but if the wily chip continues to elude us?” drawled askins.
282“eh!” gasped reggie.
“i mean if the currie and rice refuse to come at our whistle?”
“oah! yeou mean if you have no money to buy food?”
“you’ve hit it,” replied the dublin sage; “that’s the very idea.”
“why, blawst it, me man,” shrieked reggie, “don’t you know there’s a friend-in-need society in colombo? what do you fawncy we contribute to it for? now if you chaps don’t stop disgracing all the—”
“what’s the bloody row?” growled a voice in the darkness.
our employer loomed up out of the night.
“oh! that’ll be all right,” he asserted, in a soothing voice, when the controversy had been explained to him; “the tints is all up. t’night i’ll give these byes their uniforems, an’ whinever the show is goin’ on an’ the niggers can see thim, they’ll wear thim.”
“uniforms!” cried the englishmen. “that’s different, ye knoaw.”
“of course,” continued reggie, lighting a cigarette, “it will be all right with uniforms. when a man weahs a uniform, the natives think he is doing something they cawn’t do, ye knoaw, and he keeps his cawste. oah, yes, that’ll do very nicely, mr. manager. we’ll be off, then,” and the pair tripped away into the night.
“fitzgerald’s circus” was an australian enterprise. its personnel, from fritz himself to the trick poodle, hailed from the little continent. in competition with the circuses of our own land this one-ring affair would have attracted small attention; but its annual circuit of oriental cities, from hong kong to bombay, was on virgin soil where the most stereotyped “act” was greeted with bursts of enthusiasm.
to us, surfeited and sophisticated beings from an unmarveling world, the sights of interest were in the amphitheater of benches rather than in the ring. the burners lighted, we dashed off to don our uniforms. these were light blue in color and richly trimmed with gold braid—things of glory above which even the bald crown of askins and the straw-tinted thatch of the swede inspired a deep singhalese reverence. the designers of the garments, however, having in mind durability rather than the comfort of scores of annual wearers, had forced upon us a costume appropriate to the upper ranges of the himalayas.
our first uniformed duties were those of ushers, and between the appearance of the frightened vanguard of the audience and the first fanfare of the audacious “orchestra,” life moved with a vim. the hordes that swarmed in upon us before the barker had concluded his first appeal comprised every caste of singhalese society. weighty problems 283unknown to the most experienced circus man of the western world crowded themselves upon us, demanding instantaneous solution. a delegation of priests in cheese-cloth robes raised their shrill voices in protest because the space allotted them gave no room for their betel-nut boxes. half-breeds shouted strenuous objections to being seated with natives. merchants refused to enter the same section with shopkeepers. shopkeepers were chary of pollution at the touch of scribes. scribes cried out hoarsely at contact with laborers. skilled workmen screamed in frenzy at every attempt to make place among them for mere coolies.
the lower the caste of the newcomer the more prolonged was the uproar against him, and the more vindictive his own disgust at his inferiors. the hindu sudra, in his scanty loin-cloth, was abhorred of all, and shrank servilely behind the usher during the circuit of the tent, while each section in turn rose against him. the natives, for the most part, refused to sit as circus seats are meant to be sat on, but squatted obstinately on their heels, hugging their scrawny knees. wily ’rickshaw runners could be kept from crawling in among the chairs only by extreme vigilance and occasional violence. buxom brown women, caught in the crush of humanity, ran imminent peril of being separated from their loosely-fastened skirts, and through it all native youths from the mission-schools, swarmed round us, intent on displaying their “english” by asking useless and unanswerable questions.
the entrance of the european patrons, staid and pompous of demeanor, put the natives on their best behavior, and, with the appearance of the bicyclers for the first act, even the eurasian forgot that the despised sudra sat under the same tent with him. the heterogeneous throng settled down into a motionless sea of strained, astonished faces. fitzgerald sahib prided himself on the smooth manner in which his entertainment was run off, and to the four of us fell the task of supplying the oil to his circus machinery. the “wonderful cycle whiz! never before performed by australians! never!” once over, we had one minute to pull down the bicycle track and carry the heavily weighted sections outside the tent. while we lowered “master waldron’s” trapeze with one hand, we placed and held the hurdles with the other. tables and chairs for “hadgie tabor’s hand-balancing act!” must appear as if by magic. in breathless succession the trick ponies must be led on, the ring cleared for the performing elephant, set again for the “astounding jockey act,” and cleared for the “hungarian horses.”
284then “mlle. montgomery,” forgetting her bunion, capered into the glare of publicity in a costume that made even the tropically-clad singhalese women gasp with envy. most valiantly we struggled during her “daring equestrian act!” to drop the streamers low on her horse’s flanks, and to strike the fair equestrienne squarely on the head with our paper hoops; not so much from a desire to charm the audience with our dexterity as to escape the sizzling comments which the fairy-like “mademoiselle” flung back in snarling sotto voce at each blunderer.
away with hoops and ribbons! properties for the clown act! on the heels of the fools came that “mighty demonstration of man’s power over ferocious beasts!” during which an emaciated and moth-eaten tiger, crouched on a horse, rode twice round the ring with the contrite and crestfallen countenance of a hen-pecked suburbanite who has returned home without recalling the reason for the knot in his handkerchief.
ten minutes’ intermission, that was no intermission for us, and there came more properties, hoops and rings of fire, tables and chairs, performing dogs to be held in leash, and a final act for which we set up the elephant’s bicycle and drove the lion out for a spin on the huge animal’s back. had our uniforms been as airy as the raiment of the hindu coolies slinking at the tail of the howling hordes that poured through the exit, our labyrinthian paths about the enclosure could easily have been traced by the streams of sweat left behind us. even though our tasks were by no means ended with the performance, we rarely waited for the disappearance of the last stragglers to strip as far as unexacting singhalese propriety would permit.
when the last property had been laid away, we arranged our beds by setting together several chairs chosen from the general havoc, and turned in. unless we were disturbed by prowling natives, we even slept; though rarely all at once and never for an extended period.
the boss, during that strenuous first day, had promised us ample leisure when once the tents and cages were set up. unfortunately, he forgot his promise. each day we were stirring at dawn, and, after a banana and a wafer across the way, we fell to work. the benches, which the departing multitude had scattered pellmell in their dash for the cooler night outside, must be reset. the chairs of the sahibs, strewn about the ring like wreckage washed ashore, must be rearranged in symmetrical rows and decorated with ribbons. cast-off programs, banana peelings, betel-nut leaves, and all the rubbish of a band of 285merrymakers had to be picked up; the tent ropes “sweated” to keep them taut; the lion’s cage minutely inspected; the ring re-sprinkled with sawdust and, a job abhorred, freshly whitewashed. between these regular duties came a hundred and one chores of the boss’s finding; and, whatever the task in hand, it must be interrupted ever and anon to throw tent stakes at the awe-stricken faces that peered through the openings in the canvas. strange fortune if we were finished when the cry of “touch off the lights” sent us shinnying up the tent poles and ropes in jack tar fashion to kindle the gasoline burners. not even the reverend peacock could have accused us, during those merry days, of living, like drones, on the industry of others.
fitzgerald’s circus had been domiciled nearly a week in colombo, when i was unexpectedly advanced from the position of a “swipe” to one of weighty importance. it was during an idle hour late one afternoon. the four of us were displaying our accomplishments in the deserted ring, when it was my good fortune, or bad, according to the individual point of view, to be detected by the ringmaster and the proprietor in the act of “doing a hand-stand.” certain so commonplace a feat in itself could not have attracted the attention the pair bestowed upon me, i regained my accustomed posture fully expecting to lose my cherished “quid a week” for this defilement of the sawdust circle. i waited contritely. the ringmaster looked me over with critical dispassion from my shorn head to my bare feet, turned his perpetual scowl on “fitz” for a moment, and addressed me in the metallic voice of a phonograph:—
“know any other stunts?”
was the question meant seriously, or was this caustic sarcasm but a forerunner of my dismissal?
“one or two,” i admitted.
“where’d ye learn ’em?” snapped the ringmaster.
i pleaded in exoneration a few years of gymnasium membership.
“gymnasium on shipboard?” asked the owner.
“why, no, sir, on land.”
“could you do a dive over that chair into the ring, a head-stand, a stiff-fall, and a roll-up?” rasped the ringmaster.
a chuckle and a snort sounded from my companions. losing a job was, from their point of view, neither a disgrace nor a misfortune—merely a joke.
“yes, sir, i can work those,” i stammered.
“you’re a sailor?”
286“yes, sir.”
“then a few tumbles won’t hurt you any. can you hold a man of twelve stone on your shoulders?”
i made a brief mental calculation; twelve times fourteen—one hundred and sixty-eight pounds.
“sure,” i answered.
“well,” snapped the ringmaster, savagely, “i want you to go on for walhalla’s turn.”
“whaat!” i gasped; “walha—!” in my astonishment i had all but taken to my heels. walhalla and faust were our two clowns, and the joy with which the antics of the pair were greeted by the natives kept them more in evidence than any other performer. my companions roared with delight at the fancied jest.
“here! you swipes,” cried the ringmaster, whirling upon them; “go over and brush the flies off that elephant! an’ keep ’em brushed off! d’ye hear me!”
“now, then, franck,” said the proprietor—this sudden rise in the social scale had given me even the right to be addressed by name—“walhalla has a fever. out for good, i suppose. damn it, casey!” turning to his right-hand man, “i’m always losing my exhibits. look at this trip! my best bare-back skirt dies of cholera in singapore. my best cycler breaks his neck in rangoon. the plague walks off with my best trap man in bombay—damn the hole! why in hell is it always the stars that go? now it’s walhalla. five turns cut out already. if we lose any more, we’re done for. we can’t, that’s all. now—”
“but i’m no circus man!” i protested, as his eye fell on me.
“oh, hell!” said the ringmaster, “you’ve been with us long enough to know walhalla’s gags, and you can work up the stunts in a couple of rehearsals.”
“but there’s the violin act!” i objected, recalling a combination of alleged music and tumbling that always “brought down the house.”
“we’ll have to cut that out. but you can put on the others.”
“there’ll be ten chips a day in it,” put in “fitz,” casually.
“eh—er—ten rupees!” i choked. self-respecting beachcomber though i was, i would have turned missionary at that price.
“all right, sir. i’ll make a try at it,” i answered.
“of course,” said “fitz.” “go and get tiffin and be back in half an hour. i’ll have faust here for a rehearsal.”
i sprang for an exit, but stopped suddenly as a thought struck me:—
the trick elephant of fitzgerald’s circus and a high-caste singhalese with circle-comb
john askins, m.a., who had been “on the road” in the orient twenty years
287“but say,” i wailed, “we’re aground! the clothes—!”
“stretch a leg and get tiffin!” cried the ringmaster; “walhalla’s rags are all here.”
from nightfall until the audience, which “fitz” was holding back as long as possible, stormed the tent, i worked feverishly with faust in perfecting “gags,” tumbles, and the time-honored brands of “horse-play.” when our privacy was invaded, i scurried away to the dressing-tent to be made up. several long-established antics we were obliged to omit until the next day gave more opportunity for rehearsal; but the clouted audience was uncritical, the europeans indifferent to “tommy-rot,” and the performance passed with no worse mishap to the new member of the troupe than one too realistic fall and an occasional relapse into seriousness.
yet life as a circus clown was nothing if not serious—under the paint. the least difficult functions of this new calling were those executed in public. to strike “mlle. montgomery” squarely on the head with a paper hoop while holding one leg in the air, and to fall down from the imaginary impact with a whoop was as simple a matter as to do the same thing in all solemnity and the uniform of a “swipe.” it was back in the dressing-tent, scraping dried paint off one side of my blistered countenance while my fellow fool daubed fresh colors on the other, jumping out of one ridiculous costume into one more idiotic, turning the place topsy-turvy in a mad scramble for a misplaced dunce cap or a lost slap-stick, that i began to lose my fascination for this honored profession. on those days when we favored colomboans with two performances, there was little hilarity in the dethroned scaramouch who made his bed of chairs at the ring side. i wondered no more at the funereal countenance with which walhalla had been wont to haunt our morning hours before the fever fell upon him.
one long week i wore the cap and bells on the cricket ground of colombo. all good fortune, however, must have an end—even ten-rupee incomes for stranded wanderers. there dawned a day when our canvas dwelling came down by the run, and the mixed odor of sweat and sawdust was wafted away on the hot monsoon that sweeps across the playground of ceylon. the season of fitzgerald was over. the naked stevedores bundled into the ship’s hold the chest that contained walhalla’s merry raiment as carelessly as they threw the sections of the lion’s cage on top of it. on the forward deck the moth-eaten tiger peered through the bars at his native jungle behind the city, and rubbed a watery eye; at the rail an unpainted faust stared 288gloomily down at the churning screw. there were no tears shed by the united quartet that, from the far end of the breakwater, watched the circus sink hull-down on the southern horizon; but as we straggled back at dusk to join the beachcombers under the palms of gordon gardens, i caught myself feeling now and then in the band of my trousers for the sovereigns i had sewed there.
