Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/94

 passers-by of the nature of the attractions to be viewed within. It was a sideshow, a congress of freaks, an assemblage of strange people. There were, the posters promised, a sword-swallower, a tattooed lady, giants and pigmies, a three-legged man, a bearded gentlewoman, a man with an iron tongue, a fellow with a revolving head, a wild man of Borneo, an armless man; in short, an auspicious miscellany. The barker, standing on a low platform, was functioning, waving his hands and shouting to the curious crowd which had assembled.

Within, he declared, we have the greatest collection of abnormal human beings ever exhibited together under one roof. Where else can you see the little lady only two feet high, who is ninety years of age? Where else can you gaze upon a death-defying demon who eats sharp knives and thrives on fire? He swallows the burning flames as you and I swallow our bread and meat. His throat is the wonder of science. See the Rrrrrrrrussian cossack who carries thousands of pounds in weights on a hook passed through his tongue! The man with the iron tongue! See the little lady with her snakes. This little lady, a picture of female beauty, is only sixteen years old, and yet she wraps a forty-pound boa constrictor around her waist and defies him to crrrrrush her. The most terrifying spectacle you can observe on the entire island.

That settles it, exclaimed Campaspe. I adore snakes, and so they passed the entrance. A few