he had taken most of her scalp off."

"It's funny how some people are always looking for a chance to get
damages," said the Press Agent, settling himself comfortably in his
chair. "We had a case of it when Merritt and I were running a dime
museum out West. The freaks all lived together at a large boarding house
and one morning, when they reported for duty, the 'Tattooed Lady' was
missing. It was before the days when they were so common and we had
spent a lot of money to have her decorated and made her our star
attraction. Of course, none of the tattooing was visible when she was in
street costume, but when she sat on the platform dressed in low neck and
short skirts the lecturer had something to talk about, for the menagerie
pictured on her was a thing of beauty, and the few choice texts like,
'Be good and you will be happy,' which were scattered in between the
animals, were highly moral and elevating, and that was one of the strong
points of our show. Merritt used to spread himself when he was telling
how she was shipwrecked on a desert island and held captive by the cruel
cannibals, whose high priests spared her from the menu to tattoo her
with the symbols of their heathenish worship. It gave him a great chance
to come in strong on the moral part, when he explained about the texts
and told how they were added after the cannibals had been converted to
red flannel shirts, silk hats and a vegetable diet, by the missionaries,
and I have seen ancient maiden ladies moved to tears by his recital. So
when he had to give his lecture without her, he got mixed up and called
attention to the marvelous growth of hair on the face of the 'Circassian
Beauty,' thinking she was the 'Bearded Lady,' and nearly pulled the ears
off of the 'Dog Faced Boy,' trying to explain that he was 'The Man With
The Rubber Skin.' Of course, that made trouble among the freaks, who are
a mighty touchy lot anyway, and I have noticed that trouble always comes
in bunches in the show business, so I wasn't surprised when a husky guy
that looked like a farmer came in with blood in his eye and asked for
the manager. I looked around for Merritt, but he had gone around the
corner to get something to drown his sorrow, so I slipped a piece of
lead pipe under my coat and acknowledged the soft impeachment.

[Illustration: _"A 'Tattooed Lady,' and she's all covered with
picters."_]

"'Look'ee here, wot kinder a skin game be youse fellers runnin' here?'
says the guy,