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The shows arrive the touters, the spielers, the clowns, the tumblers, the girls in tights, the singers! The bands play the carnival is on! The object of the fair is to boom the business of the town. The object of the professional managers of the fair is to make money for themselves, and this they do thru the guaranty of the merchants, or a percentage on concessions, or both.
Neither he nor Jack Drew were particularly friendly with Browne or his push. The rest were crawlers, mostly pub spielers and bush larrikins, and the women were hags and larrikinesses. The town lived on cheque-men from the surrounding bush. It was a nice little place, taking it all round.
Over beyond him lay a sad-faced man in an exhausted slumber, looking so utterly done out and ill that Andy pitied him. A boy about Andy's own age, and two men whose attire and general appearance suggested side show "spielers," or those flashily dressed fellows who announce the wonders on view inside the minor canvases, lay half-buried among some gaudy draperies.
We had worked together on jobs in the city and up-country, especially in the country, and had had good times together when things were locomotive, as Jack put it; and we always managed to worry along cheerfully when things were "stationary." It was a matter for anxiety and regret to the local business people and publicans, and loafers and spielers, when our jobs were finished and we left.
Why, as soon as I saw the advanced idealist fools they're generally the middle-class, shabby-genteel families that catch Spiritualism and Theosophy and those sort of complaints, at the end of the epidemic that catch on at the tail-end of things and think they've caught something brand, shining, new; as soon as I saw them, and the problem spielers and notoriety-hunters of both sexes, beginning to hang round Australian Unionism, I knew it was doomed.
"I have just parted with the boss of the spielers," said Weston, "and I am a bit disappointed. I don't think we can get them to do the street parade stunt, but for the night job they will be all O. K." "What do you mean by the street parade stunt?" inquired Handy, in some surprise. "That's a new one on me."
When will you learn sense? Hey? After all, I Smith, you're a born mug!" He always called Smith a "mug" when he was particularly wild at him, for it hurt Smith more than anything else. "There's only two classes in the world, spielers and mugs and you're a mug, Smith." "What have I done, anyway?" asked Smith helplessly. "That's all I want to know." Steelman wearily rested his brow on his hand.
And among the voices were those of the agents who were selling my postcards, selling them like liniment in a patent-medicine show. Spielers shouted the virtues of the food or drink or tent or land locator they were advertising. Even the notaries got megaphones to announce their services until government authorities stepped in and threatened to close them all up.
There were about a dozen of us jammed into the coach, on the box seat and hanging on to the roof and tailboard as best we could. We were shearers, bagmen, agents, a squatter, a cockatoo, the usual joker and one or two professional spielers, perhaps.
Accompanied by Chuck, the Ramblin' Kid went directly to the entry offices of the Rodeo, which were roughly boxed-up compartments under the rear of the grandstand. A group of "hot-dog" vendors and "concession spielers" looked curiously at the two as they left Captain Jack and Silver Tip, with bridle reins dropped over their heads, standing in front of the office and stepped inside.
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