Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 151: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WORLD-BEATERS. Now that we misunderstand each other per- fectly, I suggest that we duck into Duck- out, Huckleberry County, Kansas.” “Duck away!” I says. “I think the climate further south will be better for me. Besides which, my mamma never reared no foolish children. S’long and good luck!” I start to edge away. Joe grabs me by the arm. ‘** Do you need any money or don’t you?” he asks. ‘“* Show me the showman who doesn’t,” I says. “All right! Without you, I can’t get away with the show. With you, we both gather important money. Suppose you let that sink in your rock formation.” We start for Duckout. II. E1cuT o’clock Sunday morning, we ar- rived at the merry village of Duckout, via fast and furious freight. At first glance the town looked like a home for veteran snails, and when me and Joe got one slant at the main street we thought it was a morgue. However, as most showmen know, all dead towns are far from being buried, and sometimes turn out to be as active as a one-armed paper hanger in a hurricane. In fact, Duckout proved to be the mints’ gold supply, no fooling! Reaching the show grounds Joe lost no time in popping in to see Mr. Pal Gaylor, owner and sole prop. of the Great United Mammoth, etc., Shows. Mr. Gaylor turns out to be a parboiled gent, one who had graduated from a Uncle Tom’s Cabin mud- show outfit years ago to his present posi- tion as boss of a nifty motorized caravan. “Sounds like pretty good bunk to me,” admits Mr. Gaylor, after Joe had told him the proposition. ‘‘ However, good bunk is so scarce that I’ll give you grifters a chance. If you’ve got the nerve, you might get away with it. On the other hand, if you land in the cooler, don’t mention my name. Go over to the boss canvas man and tell him to give you that tent I took away from the ‘Plantation Show’ last week. They flopped, and I chased ’em off the Midway. And if you don’t make good, I’ll give you 941 the same chase. First in peace, first in war, yours truly, Pal Gaylor. Beat it!” A snappy turtle, what? ‘Guess I’m some promotion kid, hey?” pipes Joe, as we head for the lair of the boss canvasman. “We'll get the tent up right away, paint a few signs, then go and dig up some rube to hypnotize. Meantime, doc, you blow around and see the editor of the paper, if they have one, give him an earful of choice and fancy blah, and we'll be selling tickets Monday afternoon.” Well, to prune a long story, the tent turned out to be the trouts’ bait, seating about two hundred odd customers. All seats, meaning hard planks on stilts, were orchestra, sold at gallery prices. We pitched the “top” in the dead center of the Mid- way, always the best money location on the Jot, provided you got a boob-tickling show. Joe, being a unnatural born conversational- ist, promotes some paint and a brush from the village blacksmith and commenced to daub out a set of yokel-yanking signs. While he was thus engaged with the art work, I breezed around to see what could be done with the editor of the Duckout I!’eek- ly Wow. A few columns about our show wouldn’t do any harm. However, try and get it! On the other hand, when in Rome, never do as the Romans do. The pilot of the eekly Wow turns out to be a beezark with side-wheeler whiskers; and when I got one look at his stern pan, meaning face, or map, I realized he had as much use for showmen as I have for three feet. As I entered his trap, he released one leg from the top of a rickety desk, and let it hit the floor with a bang. Without even looking up to see whether Jack Dempsey or the Prince of Wales was calling, he Stretches the other leg over the desk and takes a few extry puffs of a pipe that Lord Nelson must of tossed overboard at the Battle of Trafalgar. Promptly I realized that Mr. Diplomacy was in order. 7 ‘¢ Ahem!” I opens up, “ am I addressing the editor of the famous [Veekly Vow?” And I'll leave it to you, wasn’t that a good line of prune juice? ‘“ Mister,” he drawls, “‘ don’t waste vour time. I don’t need any razors, check-pro- tectors, undershirts, handy reference library Conn lDOOlK