re 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. He was not such a very large lion, but he certainly
had a full-sized roar, and the driver of the cage sat and grinned at us.

"You've no right to be on the road with a lion roaring like that!"
Willis shouted severely.

"Wal, young feller, you've no right to be on the road with such a hog
smell as that!" the driver retorted. "Our lion is the best-behaved in
the world; he wouldn't ha' roared ef he hadn't smelt them hogs so
strong."

"But you have damaged us!" I cried. "Our horses have run away and
smashed things! You'll have to pay for this!"

Another man, who appeared to be the proprietor, now came from a wagon in
the rear of the cavalcade.

"What's that about damages?" he cried. "I'll pay nothing! I have a
permit to travel on the highway!"

"You have no right to scare horses!" Willis retorted. "Your lion made a
horrible noise."

"His noise wasn't worse than your hog stench!" the showman rejoined
hotly. "My lion has as good a right to roar as your hogs have to squeal.
Drive on!" he shouted to his drivers.

The show moved forward. The Fat Lady looked back and laughed, and the
Wild Man pretended to squeal like a pig; but the gypsy fortune teller
smiled and said, "Too bad!"

Having got no satisfaction, we returned hastily to chase our runaway
team. We came