known aversion
cherished toward snakes by cultivated communities, I forbore to do so.
The only boa constrictors that I have, are now before you. These are
their heads. These their tails" (indicating the termini of the snakes).

Now, the spectators--or a large number of them--had suffered fearful
expectations of seeing real snakes. When, therefore, it was announced
that these harmless daubs, resembling, at a distance, some variety of
tropical vegetation, were the only snakes they were to see, there was a
feeling, first, of relief, and then of disappointment.

The disappointment manifested itself in low hisses, and exclamations,
such as "Humbug!" "Gammon!" "Swindle!" Tiffles made several beginnings
of excellent snake stories, of which he was the hero, but was checked by
the tumult. Finding the snakes were not popular, he determined to try
the tigers, lions, and other beasts of prey farther on. He coughed once
emphatically, and the canvas moved like clockwork.

Before it had journeyed five feet, somebody on the front row of seats
coughed twice in precisely the same manner as Tiffles. The idiot,
supposing the signal came from his employer, stopped. Tiffles,
perceiving the mistake, coughed again, and the motion was resumed; when
a double cough resounded from the front seat, and the motion ceased.

Then Tiffles realized that his system of signals was understood by
somebody. What should he do? He could not stop the free, universal right
to cough. Therefore he stepped to the corner of the curtain, raised it,
and said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the audience, "Stoop,
whenever I want you to 'stop,' or 'go on,' or 'faster,' or 'slower,' I
will say so. You understand?"

"Puffickly," replied the gifted idiot.

"I say, boys, Stoop's in there," shouted the somebody that had coughed.

"Stoop!" "Stoop!" "Bully for Stoop!" "Come out o' that, Stoop!" was
shouted all over the house; but Stoop remained faithful to his post, and
calmly ground away at the crank.

Suddenly it occurred to some boy to yell, "Boo! boo!" whereat the other
boys laughed, and took up the chorus, "Boo! boo!"

The canvas moved less steadily, slackening for a moment, and then
shooting ahead, as if the propelling power were the subject of strange
perturbation. The roguish boys, and the men too, and, chief of them,
that practical humorist of a conductor, observing this, screamed, "Boo!
boo! boo I boo!" all the louder. Tiffles knew that the critical tim