Jack London - Michael, Brother of Jerry

“See,” Collins exposited. “He’s got confidence in me. He trusts me. He knows I’ve never spiked him and that I always save him in the end. I’m his good Samaritan, and you’ll have to be the same to him if you buy him.—Now I’ll give you your spiel. Of course, you can improve on it to suit yourself.”

The master-trainer walked out of the rope square, stepped forward to an imaginary line, and looked down and out and up as if he were gazing at the pit of the orchestra beneath him, across at the body of the house, and up into the galleries.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed the sawdust emptiness before him as if it were a packed audience, “this is Barney Barnato, the biggest joker of a mule ever born. He’s as affectionate as a Newfoundland puppy—just watch—”

Stepping back to the ropes, Collins extended his hand across them, saying: “Come here, Barney, and show all these people who you love best.”

And Barney twinkled forward on his small hoofs, nozzled the open hand, and came closer, nozzling up the arm, nudging Collins’s shoulders with his nose, half-rearing as if to get across the ropes and embrace him. What he was really doing was begging and entreating Collins to take him away out of the squared ring from the torment he knew awaited him.

“That’s what it means by never spiking him,” Collins shot at the man with the waxed moustaches, as he stepped forward to the imaginary line in the sawdust, above the imaginary pit of the orchestra, and addressed the imaginary house.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Barney Barnato is a josher. He’s got forty tricks up each of his four legs, and the man don’t live that he’ll let stick on big back for sixty seconds. I’m telling you this in fair warning, before I make my proposition. Looks easy, doesn’t it?—one minute, the sixtieth part of an hour, to be precise, sixty seconds, to stick on the back of an affectionate josher mule like Barney. Well, come on you boys and broncho riders. To anybody who sticks on for one minute I shall immediately pay the sum of fifty dollars; for two whole, entire minutes, the sum of five hundred dollars.”

This was the cue for Samuel Bacon, who advanced across the sawdust, awkward and grinning and embarrassed, and apparently was helped up to the stage by the extended hand of Collins.

“Is your life insured?” Collins demanded.

Sam shook his head and grinned.

“Then what are you tackling this for?”

“For the money,” said Sam. “I jes’ naturally needs it in my business.”

“What is your business?”

“None of your business, mister.” Here Sam grinned ingratiating apology for his impertinence and shuffled on his legs. “I might be investin’ in lottery tickets, only I ain’t. Do I get the money?—that’s our business.”

“Sure you do,” Collins replied. “When you earn it. Stand over there to one side and wait a moment.—Ladies and gentlemen, if you will forgive the delay, I must ask for more volunteers.—Any more takers? Fifty dollars for sixty seconds. Almost a dollar a second . . . if you win. Better! I’ll make it a dollar a second. Sixty dollars to the boy, man, woman, or girl who sticks on Barney’s back for one minute. Come on, ladies. Remember this is the day of equal suffrage. Here’s where you put it over on your husbands, brothers, sons, fathers, and grandfathers. Age is no limit.—Grandma, do I get you?” he uttered directly to what must have been a very elderly lady in a near front row.—“You see,” (to the prospective buyer), “I’ve got the entire patter for you. You could do it with two rehearsals, and you can do them right here, free of charge, part of the purchase.”

The next two tumblers crossed the sawdust and were helped by Collins up to the imaginary stage.

“You can change the patter according to the cities you’re in,” he explained to the Frenchman. “It’s easy to find out the names of the most despised and toughest neighbourhoods or villages, and have the boys hail from them.”

Continuing the patter, Collins put the performance on. Sam’s first attempt was brief. He was not half on when he was flung to the ground. Half a dozen attempts, quickly repeated, were scarcely better, the last one permitting him to remain on Barney’s back nearly ten seconds, and culminating in a ludicrous fall over Barney’s head. Sam withdrew from the ring, shaking his head dubiously and holding his side as if in pain. The other lads followed. Expert tumblers, they executed most amazing and side-splitting fails. Sam recovered and came back. Toward the last, all three made a combined attack on Barney, striving to mount him simultaneously from different slants of approach. They were scattered and flung like chaff, sometimes falling heaped together. Once, the two white boys, standing apart as if recovering breath, were mowed down by Sam’s flying body.

“Remember, this is a real mule,” Collins told the man with the waxed moustaches. “If any outsiders butt in for a hack at the money, all the better. They’ll get theirs quick. The man don’t live who can stay on his back a minute . . . if you keep him rehearsed with the spike. He must live in fear of the spike. Never let him slow up on it. Never let him forget it. If you lay off any time for a few days, rehearse him with the spike a couple of times just before you begin again, or else he might forget it and queer the turn by ambling around with the first outside rube that mounts him.

“And just suppose some rube, all hooks of arms and legs and hands, is managing to stick on anyway, and the minute is getting near up. Just have Sam here, or any of your three, slide in and spike him from the palm. That’ll be good night for Mr. Rube. You can’t lose, and the audience’ll laugh its fool head off.

“Now for the climax! Watch! This always brings the house down. Get busy you two!—Sam! Ready!”

While the white boys threatened to mount Barney from either side and kept his attention engaged, Sam, from outside, in a sudden fit of rage and desperation, made a flying dive across the ropes and from in front locked arms and legs about Barney’s neck, tucking his own head close against Barney’s head. And Barney reared up on his hind legs, as he had long since learned from the many palm-spikings he had received on head and neck.

“It’s a corker,” Collins announced, as Barney, on his hind legs, striking vainly with his fore, struggled about the ring. “There’s no danger. He’ll never fall over backwards. He’s a mule, and he’s too wise. Besides, even if he does, all Sam has to do is let go and fall clear.”

The turn over, Barney gladly accepted the halter and was led out of the square ring and up to the Frenchman.

“Long life there—look him over,” Collins continued to sell. “It’s a full turn, including yourself, four performers, besides the mule, and besides any suckers from the audience. It’s all ready to put on the boards, and dirt cheap at five thousand.”

The Frenchman winced at the sum.

“Listen to arithmetic,” Collins went on. “You can sell at twelve hundred a week at least, and you can net eight hundred certain. Six weeks of the net pays for the turn, and you can book a hundred weeks right off the bat and have them yelling for more. Wish I was young and footloose. I’d take it out on the road myself and coin a fortune.”

And Barney was sold, and passed out of the Cedarwild Animal School to the slavery of the spike and to be provocative of much joy and laughter in the pleasure-theatre of the world.

“The thing is, Johnny, you can’t love dogs into doing professional tricks, which is the difference between dogs and women,” Collins told his assistant. “You know how it is with any dog. You love it up into lying down and rolling over and playing dead and all such dub tricks. And then one day you show him off to your friends, and the conditions are changed, and he gets all excited and foolish, and you can’t get him to do a thing. Children are like that. Lose their heads in company, forget all their training, and throw you down.”