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Updated: June 26, 2025
"No, sir," said the waiter, as he proceeded to change the plates, two of them having their contents hardly touched. "There's a wild-beast show in the town, sir, in the field at the back," and as he spoke the man looked sharply at the boys. "Oh," said the Colonel with a forced laugh. "Why, boys, is that where your elephant came from?"
Assenting "Ughs" and "Ho-hos" followed in rapid succession, and in response to Brock's invitation the headmen, painted and plumed and in striped blankets, squatted on their stained reed mats and wild-beast skins on the basswood log floor.
Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd, which swings you to and fro, and in and out, and every way but the right one; add to this the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowings of speaking-trumpets, the squeaking of penny dittos, the noise of a dozen bands, with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same time, the hallooing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild-beast shows; and you are in the very centre and heart of the fair.
Mahim Wood boasted no theatres or wild-beast shows, neither were we treated with the sight of giants or dwarfs; but there was no want of booths for the purpose of affording refreshment. One of these cafés, the front of which was entirely open, was most brilliantly illuminated, and filled with numerous tables, covered with a multitude of good things.
The melancholia, which religion had more or less restrained and comforted during a troubled lifetime, became on this tragic night a wild-beast impulse that must have its prey. He rose suddenly and came towards her, his eyes glaring, and a burst of invective on his white lips. Then he made a rush for a heavy stick that leant against the wall.
"Thought not, sir, for the Doctor had got a twinkle in his eye when he'd done with the wild-beast man. It would have been hard if you'd caught it after what you did. Pst! There's the study-bell."
The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant theatres are the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly, the ‘Wild-beast shows,’ where a military band in beef-eater’s costume, with leopard-skin caps, play incessantly; and where large highly-coloured representations of tigers tearing men’s heads open, and a lion being burnt with red-hot irons to induce him to drop his victim, are hung up outside, by way of attracting visitors.
She did it, and after this we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about clothes.... I find she is a good deal of a companion.
Such civility was not by any means the rule of the road. As the boys drew nearer, they felt sure it must be a wild-beast show, from the rumble of subdued roars, as if from pent-up animals, and the chatter of birds that resounded from the depths of the caravans in which the inmates were, evidently, disturbed from their slumbers by the early move.
Is it to be like a durbar at home, when all the rajahs and nawabs come together with their elephants and trains?" "Oh, no, no, no!" cried Glyn, laughing. "Nothing of the kind." "Then, why are they making all this fuss? It said on the bills we saw yesterday in the town, `Ramball's Wild-Beast Show. Grand Procession."
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