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I supposed I was to see a nautilus; it was legere et vaporeux, it could not then be a seal. No, a nautilus. Thirty centimes here goes for a sight of the nautilus. But it was touching to observe the confidence of the showman. He refused the entrance fee. "No, gentlemen. You shall yourselves decide whether the amphitrite is worth six sous. If you say not go forth; I am content, but I pity you."
Oscar showed a touch of patronage, the superiority of the senior, in his intercourse with Beardsley, and often praised him ineptly, whereas Beardsley to the last spoke of Oscar as a showman, and hoped drily that he knew more about literature than he did about art.
Shall we try? said Albinia, with a skip backward, so as to lay her hand on the shoulder of her own great scholar, while the showman drew back the curtain, observing 'I wish, ma'am, I could show "it and its young one" together, but the young specimen is unfortunately asleep. Behold the original black spider monkey!
His hard eyes narrowed, and hatred of this insolent countryman blazed there. The countryman glared back with just as fierce bitterness. "Mebbe you've got money to back your opinion of Widder Pike's hen there?" suggested the showman. "Money's the only thing that seems to interest you, and you don't seem to care how you make it."
"And yet to-day, if you should ask ten Boston men, 'Who was Artemas Ward? nine would say he was an amusing showman. If you asked 'Who was John Thomas? nine would say he was a flunky commemorated by Thackeray." E. E. HALE, "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 100. Frothingham's "Siege," 110. Adams Letters, p. 64.
Only imagine, the day that you, poor, dear papa, sold your coat to buy me a spelling-book, that I might go to school, I escaped to see the puppet show, and the showman wanted to put me on the fire, that I might roast his mutton, and he was the same that afterwards gave me five gold pieces to take them to you, but I met the Fox and the Cat, who took me to the inn of The Red Craw-Fish, where they ate like wolves, and I left by myself in the middle of the night, and I encountered assassins who ran after me, and I ran away, and they followed, and I ran, and they always followed me, and I ran, until they hung me to a branch of a Big Oak, and the beautiful Child with blue hair sent a little carriage to fetch me, and the doctors when they saw me said immediately, 'If he is not dead, it is a proof that he is still alive' and then by chance I told a lie, and my nose began to grow until I could no longer get through the door of the room, for which reason I went with the Fox and the Cat to bury the four gold pieces, for one I had spent at the inn, and the Parrot began to laugh, and instead of two thousand gold pieces I found none left, for which reason the judge when he heard that I had been robbed had me immediately put in prison to content the robbers, and then when I was coming away I saw a beautiful bunch of grapes in a field, and I was caught in a trap, and the peasant, who was quite right, put a dog-collar round my neck that I might guard the poultry-yard, and acknowledging my innocence let me go, and the Serpent with the smoking tail began to laugh and broke a blood-vessel in his chest, and so I returned to the house of the beautiful Child, who was dead, and the Pigeon, seeing that I was crying, said to me, 'I have seen your father who was building a little boat to go in search of you, and I said to him, 'Oh! if I also had wings, and he said to me, 'Do you want to go to your father? and I said, 'Without doubt! but who will take me to him? and he said to me, 'I will take you, and I said to him, 'How? and he said to me, 'Get on my back, and so we flew all night, and then in the morning all the fishermen who were looking out to sea said to me, 'There is a poor man in a boat who is on the point of being drowned, and I recognized you at once, even at that distance, for my heart told me, and I made signs to you to return to land."
Yet, had it been his humour, he could have played the showman to Michael Angelo and Blake at least as well as to Bewick, Stothard, or Chodowiecki. But a modesty, marvellously mingled with irony, was of the very essence of his nature. No man expatiated less. He never expounded anything in his born days; he very soon wearied of those he called 'strong' talkers.
None other than the galley-slave Gines de Pasamonte, or Don Ginesillo de Paropilla, as Don Quixote would have it. It was in the guise of a showman, with only one eye and a part of his face visible, that he found it an easy matter to evade being caught by the servants of the law, who had been hunting for him ever since he was liberated through the generosity and bravery of Don Quixote.
In old times, when people were more afraid of the Devil and of witches than they are now, they liked to have a priest or a minister somewhere near to scare 'em off; but nowadays, if you could find an old woman that would ride round the room on a broomstick, Barnum would build an amphitheatre to exhibit her in; and if he could come across a young imp, with hoofs, tail, and budding horns, a lineal descendant of one of those "daemons" which the good people of Gloucester fired at, and were fired at by "for the best part of a month together" in the year 1692, the great showman would have him at any cost for his museum or menagerie.
Astley, the showman, being informed of his Lordship's intention, met us on Westminster Bridge dressed in his uniform as sergeant major of the Royal Light Dragoons and mounted on a white charger. He escorted us to one of the large boxes under the pent-house reserved for the gentry. And when the show was over and the place cleared, begged, that I would ride his Indian Chief.
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