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From Place to Place

Chapter 9 THE BULL CALLED EMILY

Word Count: 6630    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

e restless currents of Broadway at a sharpened angle. The dish upon which we principally dined was called on the menu Chicken a la Marengo. We knew why.

and joined the Dominecker Kid's gang before it shed its pin-feathers. There were two of us engaged in the fru

ee-joints. After a struggle in which the honours stood practically even, he laid down his kn

the liniment, will you? This

elf only with altering such words and such expressions as strictly figure in the business affairs of its various crafts and pursuits. Nor to me did it sound like the language of the circus-lot, for in such case it probably would have been more complex. So by process of elimination I decided it was of the slang code of the burlesque and vaudeville stage

" I asked craftily. "Your own coinage, o

nt waiter, who because he plainly suffered from fallen arches

nd serve him to the next guy that feels like he needs exercise more'n he does nourishment. The gravy may be mussed u

lse?" said the waiter. "The Wiene

e after-show now. Slip me a dipper of straight chicory and one of those Flor de Boiled Dinners, and then you can break the bad news to my pal here."

rned

got mince pie here like Mother Emma Goldman used to make.

ted peanuts that lurked in the shadow of the bowl containing the olives and the celery. For this, you should know,

eem to care deeply for such. I lost my tas

ted, for I saw the light of remi

en to tell you about the time I furnished the financial backing for Wind

ad and in sil

lonely and low in my peace of mind on account of my regular side-kick the Sweet Caps Kid being in the hospital. He'd made the grievous mistake of trying to sell a half-interest in the Aquarium to a visiting Swede. Right in the middle of the negotiations something came up that made the Swede doubtful that all was not well, and he betrayed his increasing misgivings by hauling out a set of old-fashioned genuine antique brass knucks and nicking up Sw

m in the form of words. If he wasn't conversing, it was a sign he had acute sore throat. But to counteract that fault he was the

ay a bull?

Why not? Ain't you wi

m, but a bull

s to refined maiden ladies residin' in New England and points adjacent. Only, show-people ain't got any false modesty that way. In the show-business a bull is a bull, whether

having been left a helpless orphan on account of a railroad wreck to the old Van Orten shows back yonder in eighteen-eighty-something. So Windy, he took her as a prattling infant in arms when she didn't weigh an ounce over a ton

h a bull about the size and general specifications of a furniture-car had its drawbacks. She was liable to lean up against you in a playful, kittenish kind of a way, and cave in most of your ribs. It was like having a violent flirtation with a landslide

nfesting a lodging-house for members of the profession over here on East Eleventh Street, and Emily had been in a livery barn down in Greenwich Village, just natura

ry to get Emily out of hock, he can snare a line of bookings in vaudeville, and we'll all three go out on the two-a-day together, hi

e movies and draw down so much money that if they only get half as much as they say they're getting, they're getting almost twice as much as anybody would give 'em; but them times, vaudeville was their one best bet. And next to emotional actrines who could emosh twicet

states that so far as Emily's personal conduct is concerned, during her enforced sojourn in his midst, she's always deported herself like a perfect lady. But she takes up an awful lot of room, and one of the hands is now on the verge of nervous prostration from overexertions incurred in packing hay to her, and, it seems she's addicted to nightmares. She gets to dreaming that a mouse nearly an inch and a half long is after her,-all bulls is terrible

the start of a fixed habit,' he says. 'Ever since then, if I forget to bring her in her one five-cent bag of peanuts per diem, per day, she calls personally to inquire into the oversight. She waits very p

the largest East Indian elephant in the world shoves three or four thousand pounds of herself in at that side door and begins waving her trunk around in the air, meanwhile uttering fretful, complaining so

mily of deceased. Naturally, with a job like that on my hands, I don't think about Emily at all; my mind's all occupied up with making the affair pass off in a tasty and pleasant fashion for all concerned. Well, the cortege is just leaving the late re

eral procession, is calculated to distract popular attention away from the main attraction. Under the circumstances I wouldn't blame no corpse on earth for feeling jealous-let alone a popular and prominent corpse like this here one was, a party that had been a district leader at Tammany Hall in his day, and after that the owner of the most fash

coach. But Emily just won't take a hint. She sticks along until I stops the procession and goes in a guinea fruitstore on the

ds and relatives also resented it; they were telling me so all the way back from the cemet'ry. There ain't no real harm in Emily, and I've got powerfully attached to her,

dislocating it, and he introduces me to Emily, and we shakes hands together,-I means trunks,-and then Windy unshackles her, and she follows us along just as gentle as a kitten to them freight-yards over on Te

just the same as one big happy family, as w

temper'ment. I always figgered out that temper'ment, when a grand wopra singster has it, is just plain old temper when it afflicts a bricklayer. I don't know what form it would take if it should seize on a bull, but Emily appears to be absolutely immune. Gi

and plays baseball with him and so forth and so on, for fifteen minutes, winding up by waving the Amurikin flag over her head. But all this time she's keeping one eye on me, where I'm standing in the wings with a sack of peanuts in my pocket waiting for her to come of

n't what it used to be, if indeed it ever was. Along about the middle of the week the young feller that's doing the p

ay matinêe, Emily the Pluperfect, Ponderous, Pachydermical Performer, direct from the court of the reigning Roger of Simla County, India,

,' says this lad, 'provi

s,' I says. 'Why,' I says, 'Emily's middle name is Peanuts. Offhand,' I says, 'I don't know precisely how many peanuts there are,' I says, 'because if I ever heard the exact figures, I've forgot 'em, but I'd like to lay you

ttle social function is certainly starting out to be a success. The street in front is lined on both sides with dagos with peanut-stands, selling peanuts to the population as fast as they can pass 'em out; and there's a long line, mainly kids, at the box-office. I goes on in and takes a flash at the front of the house through

o on her legs and watering at the mouth until she just naturally ca

like you're due to get your fullupances of the succ

rough and taken her bows, the manager leaves the curtain up and Emily steps back behind a rope that a couple of the hands stretches acrosst the stage, with me standing on one side of her and Windy on the other; and then a couple more hands shoves a

ll lecture on the size, dimensions, habits and quaint peculiarities of this wondrous creature. That last part suits Windy right down to the gr

ite; tiny tots with their parents, guardians or nurses, and tiny tots without none; tiny tots that are beginning to outgrow the tiny tottering stage, and other varieties of tiny tots too numerous to mention. And clutched in each and every tiny tot's chubby hand is a bag of peanut

went to the bourne from out which no peanut, up until that time, has ever been known to return; and Emily is smiling benevolently and reaching out for the next sack. And behind the secon

s. To myself I says: 'I guess I'm a bad little suggester, eh, what? Here's Emily getting all this free provender and W

she ain't reaching out for the free-will offerings with quite so much eagersomeness as she was displaying a spell back. Also I takes notice th

on of hay for breakfast certainly is competent to take in a couple of wagon-loads of peanuts for

n't hardly started. Here's a chance,' I says,

in shooting off his face, but I'm more or less concerned by certain mighty significant facts. For one thing, Emily ain't eatin' sacks and all any more; she's emptying the peanuts out and throwing the paper bags aside. Likewis

ramp, the world's cramping record is also in a fair way to be busted this afternoon

the reception right in the middle of it on account of the disappointment amongst the tin

ot deep. It couldn't of cost a cent less'n half a dollar, that bag. Emily reaches for the contribution, fondles it for a second or two and starts to upend it down her throat; and then with a low, sad, hopeless cry she drops it on the stage and sort of shrugs her front legs forward and stands there with her head

velling. There's some scenery in her way, and some furniture and props and one thing and other, but she don't trouble to go round 'em. She goes through 'em, as being a more simple and direct way, and a minute later she steps out through the stage entrance into the crowded m

he main street of the largest bull in captivity, wearing part of a cottage set for a collar and making sounds through her snout like a switch-engine in dis

d right away it's made plain to me by her actions that Emily regards the sight as a part of a general conspiracy to feed her some peanuts when she already has more peanuts than what she really required for personal use. She reaches out for the first peanut-machine in the row, curls her trunk around it and slams it against a brick wall so hard that it immediately begins to look some

r room. Emily's snout is aimed straight up as though she's craving air, and her tail is standing straight out behind, stiff as a poker except that about every few seconds a painful quiver runs through it from the end that's nearest Emily to the

oot, but it's unnecessary advice, because he's only chucking his hardware away so's to lighten him up for a couple of hundred yards of straightaway sprinting. I see Emily make a side-swipe with her nozzle at a stout gent who's in the act of climbing a telegraph-pole hand over hand. She misses the seat of his pants by a fra

upon a bin full of peanuts. So she just presses her face against the pane like Little Mary in the po'm, and at that the entire front end of that establishment seems to give away in a very simultaneous manner, and Emily reaches in through the orifices and plucks out the contents of that there store, including stock, fixtures and good wil

There ain't no opening on the nigh side of it, but that don't hinder Emily none. She gives one heave with her shoulders and makes a door and passes on in and out again on the far side by the same methods. I arrives around the end of the shed just in time to see her slide down a steep grade through somebody's truck-garden and

in judgment on the part of all of us,-but stand back and give me room. Up till this time,' she says, 'I'v

he certa

I'm under arrest for inciting riots and disturbances and desecration of property and various other crimes and misdemeanours. I suggests to 'em that if they're really craving to arrest anybody, they should oughter begin with Emily, but they don't fall i

e wrecked fruitstore, and the man that owned the opera-house, and the stout lady who'd fainted from the waist up but was now entirely recovered, and the fleshy gent who'd climbed the telegraph-pole, and the railroad a

, and he'd be satisfied just to take over our private car in consideration of the loss inflicted by Emily to his freight-shed. I was trying to tell him how much we appreciated his kindness,

Windy bid me good-by and went off acrosst-country afoot, aiming to catch up with Ringbold Brothers' circus, which was reported to be operating somewhere in that vicinity. As for me, I'd had enough for the time being of the refined amusement business. I took my half of that lone sawbuck which was all that

d as Scandalous stood up and

predicament to the butch, saying as how I wanted what was the most f

riber'

tuation erro

etained where a majority conse

otted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mou

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