In one cage there was a boa
constrictor, untruthfully advertised to be thirty feet long, which a Fat
Lady exhibited at each performance, the monster coiled round her neck.
In another cage were six performing monkeys and four educated dogs.
When we saw them that day on the road, the Fat Lady, said to weigh four
hundred pounds, was journeying in a double-seated carriage behind the
cages. Squeezed on the seat beside her, rode a queer-looking little old
man, with a long white beard, whose specialty was to eat glass tumblers,
or at least chew them up. He also fought on his hands and knees with one
of the dogs. His barking, growling and worrying were so true to life
that the spectators could scarcely tell which was the dog and which the
man. On the back seat was a gypsy fortune teller and a Wild Man, alleged
to hail from the jungles of Borneo and to be so dangerous that two armed
keepers had to guard him in order to prevent him from destroying the
local population. As we first saw him, divested of his "get-up," he
looked tame enough. He was conversing sociably with the gypsy fortune
teller.
But for the moment our attention and our indignation were directed
mainly at the lion.
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