dmiration and attention,
With charms too numerous to mention.'

"That made the Leopard Boy mad, for you know that freaks are as proud of
their deformities as a mother is of a new baby, and look on normal
people as objects of pity. But Merritt blew his whistle and passed on to
the Circassian, and he made sheep's eyes and threw a chest as his
fingers toyed with her peroxide locks. Say, it was sickening to listen
to, and I saw that even the Stone Breaker was showing signs of distress
and couldn't stand much of it. He bore up pretty well at first, while
Merritt stuck to describing the 'golden locks and eyes of blue,' but
when he got to the 'sugar is sweet and so are you,' stage he commenced
to get mad and moved over to the platform.

"'Say, Mag,' says he, 'get down offen dat staige an' come away from de
guy. It ain't in our contrac' dat we has ter stand for his gettin' soft
on youse an' stringin' youse like dat. Come down, er I'll climb up an'
break his face fer him.'

"'Sure, Mike,' says the blonde, and climbs down. That made Merritt mad
and he talks real English without any poetic frills for a minute. He
allowed that he could lick any Stone Breaker that ever came off the
Bowery, and when he started to prove it there was a mix-up which made
the breaking up of 'The Society upon the Stanislaus' look like a fist
fight between two Frenchmen. The walls were covered with curiosities
from all over the world, and pretty soon they were flying through the
air. Merritt yanked down an Indian war club and started for the Stone
Breaker and somebody swatted him over the head with a mummy. The Legless
Wonder couldn't join in, but he contributed a two-headed calf which was
preserved in a jar of alcohol, and the Leopard Boy grabbed a bunch of
Zulu spears and prodded every one in reach. Even the blonde was
something of a scrapper and she mixed in with a miscellaneous assortment
of stuffed animals and preserved specimens, to say nothing of some
choice language which she hadn't learned in Circassia. The place was
pretty well wrecked by the time the police arrived and separated the
fighters.

"'What's all this row about, anyway?' asks the sergeant after they had
quieted things down.

"'Dat guy was tryin' to get nex' to me wife, de Circassian Beaut','
answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts bum poetry about her, an' I won't
stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would
a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight