The Missing Link - Edward Dyson (distant reading txt) 📗

on your perch," cried Madame Thunder, "The Professor's openin' up."

The door was opened, and the Marvels heard Professor Thunder declaiming on the astonishing quality of his exhibits.

"Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!" exclaimed the professor in his deep, steam-organ tones. "Roll up, and see Mahdi and Marve--Mabdi the Missing Link, the great man-monkey, captured in the gloom junge of Darkest Africa, the Connectin' link 'tween man an' the beasts; Marve, the Mystic, the prophetess, enchantess and Egyptian seer, who will read your future in your palm, exhibit her educated pig, and display the occult science of the Oriental wonder-workers!'

"Here they come," said Madame, arranging her rich Egyptian costume, made by sewing a design of spangles on a curiously-patterned bed quilt.

The Missing Link hooked himself to the crossbar with one hand, drew up his hairy legs, and remained suspended in a limp attitude, as two women, with frightened children clinging to their skirts, entered the show.

Madame took charge of the audience, and lucidly explained the Darwinian theory, beginning with Spider, the tiny ape, and tracing the descent of man through Ammonia, the gorilla, to Mahdi the Missing Link, and Mahdi romped about the cage, growled and gibbered, poking his amazingly human face through the bars for fleeting moments.

When not engaged telling fortunes, performing a few primitive illusions, or putting Ephraim, the Educated Hog, through his manoeuvres, Madame was anything the occasion required. The Professor had great faith in her. She had once carried the show through successfully when the Living Skeleton, the Missing Link, Ammonia the Gorilla, and Ephraim were all incapacitated through an influenza epidemic.

They had a big evening, the holiday-makers flocked in so freely that Professor Thunder abandoned his position as "spruicher," or public speaker, and took charge of the interior, acting as explainer and interpreter, leaving his little daughter Letitia to take the sixpences at the door.

The night was warm, and as the stream of patrons was incessant, Nickie the Kid found his duties most oppressive, and had serious thoughts of shedding his skin.

Professor Thunder greatly excited the interest of the crowd by announcing that a sum of one pound and a silver medal valued at one guinea would be given to any person courageous enough to follow Madame Marve's example and enter the cage containing Mahdi, the Missing Link.

Nickie was resentful, as this meant a most energetic demonstration of savagery on his part, following a fawning and submissive manner, while madame, wearing a large sombrero and a man's coat, moved about in the cage, cracking a whip.

The people gathered before the cage gazed upon madame with stupid awe, while the strange monster capered, or prostrated himself in great humility at her bidding. When she had withdrawn, and after the Professor had made his prodigal offer, it was Mahdi's duty to stimulate ungovernable ferocity, in order to deter any too-venturesome spirits. Nickie did his best. He bounded madly round the cage, he tore at the straw, tooth and nail, he roared terribly, and snatched furiously at the people near the bars. The crowd retreated in terror; all save one woman, a grim-looking female with the indurated face of an old-established lodginghouse-keeper.

This woman came forward, and jabbed at Mahdi the Missing Link with her umbrella. "Gerrout, yeh brute!" she said. Mahdi backed into shades carefully provided at the back of the cage, and the old woman reached her umbrella through the bars, and made a hit at him. Mahdi seemed to cower.

"A prize of one pound and a silver medal to any person daring enough to enter the cage of Mahdi, the man-monkey!" repeated Professor Thunder, with great hardihood.

"Wha's that?" gasped the woman.

Professor Thunder repeated his intrepid words; aside he hissed "Bellow, damn you--bellow!"

Nickie bellowed; he jumped with desperate energy, he clawed up the straw, but he remained in the shadow.

"A pound!" cried the woman. "A pound jist fer goin' in with that ape? Done! I'm yer man."

The Professor was thunderstruck, so also was Mahdi the Missing Link. Never since Thunder invested in his famous fake of the man-monkey had man or woman been found courageous enough to beard the monster in his den for a pound. Never had any been expected to. Professor Thunder stood non-plussed.

Madame went to the back of the cage. "Howl!" she whispered. "Howl! Do you want to ruin us?"

Mahdi howled, he growled ferociously, he made an attempt to savage Ammonia. His paroxysms were fearful to look upon, but the woman did not seem to mind in the least.

"Open the door," she said.

"Madame, are you quite resolved to take this terrible risk?" said Thunder, gravely, feeling keenly the approaching loss of a hard-earned pound.

"Terrible pickles!" said the woman. "I've bin managin' men fer twenty years, an' I ain't goin' t be stopped be no monkey."

"Very well, madam, the consequences be upon your own head." (Aside to Nickie) "Roar, curse you, roar!"

The Missing Link crept to the back bars in an imploring attitude. "No, no; for the love of heaven! don't let her in!" he whispered to Madame Marve.

Professor Thunder burst into one of his frenzied street orations to drown the voice of the Missing Link, and threw open the cage door. The crowd huddled hack, horrified. One girl screamed, but the heroine from the old-established lodging-house boldly entered the cage, swinging her gamp.

It was expected that the strange monster from the dim, damp jungles of Darkest Africa would spring upon her, but he did nothing of the kind; he rushed to the back of his cage, and cowered down, burying his face in the straw.

The heroine butted Mahdi the Missing Link with her gamp. He gave no sign. She kicked him. He bore it meekly, crouching lower. There was some tittering in the crowd.

"Get up, you nasty brute!" said the woman, and prodded the horrid monster.

Nickie didn't even growl. The woman kicked, she kicked with force. She booted the terrible brute round the cage. She seemed to glory in her triumph, and when Mahdi butted into a corner and refused to stir, she took him by one leg, and towed him twice round the cage, and the tittering the crowd swelled to yells of derisions and ribald laughter, while Professor Thunder pranced about and cursed furiously. To save his show from being ruined with ridicule, he rushed in, seized the woman, and bundled her from the cage.

"I can't permit on to risk your life in this mad way," he blurted; "any moment he might round on you, and then they'd pinch me for manslaughter. Here is your pound, madam; go, and thank God you have been permitted to live through this fearful experience." He paid with the grand air of a hero of melodrama. His manner was so impressive it almost restored confidence, but Mahdi, the monster, remained crouched at the back of his cage, his face hidden in the straw, and nothing would induce him to come out till closing time.

When the last patron was gone, and the doors were closed, Professor Thunder approached Nickie.

"Well, my friend, you're a pretty cheap kind of baa-lamb for a Missin' Link, I must say," he said haughtily. "Why in the devil did you allow the woman to make such a holy show of you?"

"What was a man to do?" answered Nickie.

"A Missin' Link that knew his business would have scared her out of her rags. By Heavings, man, you are no artist--you will never be an artist."

"You couldn't scare that woman with a den of lions and an old-time German dragon, Professor."

"Bosh! Rot! My last Missin' Link would have had her in fits, sir."

"Allow me to know, please."

"What do you know about her in pertickler, fellow?"

"Well, it's ten years now since I ran away from her, Professor, but I ought to know something about her. She's my first error of judgment. She's my wife!"


CHAPTER VIII.

THE LINK GOES MISSING.

THE Missing Link was recognised by patrons of Thunder's Museum of Marvels as no ordinary animal. The Professor's show being conducted in a small shop, and owing nothing of its popularity to expensive advertisments in the "Amusements" columns, received no recognition from the press, consequently fame on a large scale did not come to Professor Thunder. Nevertheless the Museum of Marvels enjoyed a reputation in humble circles, and here Mahdi was talked of, and accepted without a question, as an astonishing vindication of the Darwinian hypothesis about which the Professor discoursed so fluently in his three minutes' lecture before the cage. It had only taken Nicholas Crips two weeks to assert himself, and already he had introduced many novelties into the recognised "business" for Missing Links.

Occasionally a too-inquisitive visitor with a taste for natural history became obtrusive and sought close investigation. It was part of Nickie's duty to fill such visitors with a proper respect for Missing Links, but ninety-nine out of every hundred accepted Mahdi in good faith. It is an axiom in the show business that the people who can't be deceived are so few that they are not worth considering.

It was a hot day, life in the cage was very oppressive. Nickie the Kid was painfully thirsty. Probably no Missing Link since the day when man began to emerge from the monkey had ever been so sorely afflicted with the craving for alcoholic stimulants.

Mahdi had a fixed allowance his beer supply was rigorously prescribed by Professor Thunder, and precisely measured by Madame Marve. It was this precision that prevented Nickie being quite content with an artistic career.

He had had his first pint. The second pint was not due for two hours. Nicholas Crips was not satisfied he would survive the time. The place was stifling.

"Yar-r, get to blazes!" snorted the Darwinian hypothesis, and hurled his water tin at Ammonia.

Ephraim, the pig, grunted pitifully, and Matty Cann, the bone man, drowsed in his chair. Madame Marve was sleeping, too, and the ripple of a monotonous snore came from the Egyptian tent.

There were no patrons, the town was still, prone under the great heat. Professor Thunder entered, mopping his brow, and the Missing Link pressed against the bars.

"How is it for a drink?" he said. "You've got to be generous, Professor, or I resign. There you are, a drink, or my resignation--the loss of the most versatile Link in the profession."

The Professor entered the Egyptian tent, and presently returned with a pint pannikin which he passed through to Mr. Crips. Nickie seized it greedily, raised it to his lips, and then changed his mind, and hurled it at Thunder with a furious imprecation.

"Water!" snarled the Missing Link, "Water! You have the heart to insult a Christian thirst with water on a day like this, you blastiferous heathen! Let me out! I resign. Let me out of this monkey house."

Professor Thunder laughed and returned to his post at the door, and the baffled Link pushed his face through the bars and poured a torrent of frantic objurgations in the direction of the street door.

"Nickie, fer th' love iv 'Eaven let er man sleep," pleaded the Living Skeleton pitifully. "I was just a-dreamin' iv pickled pigs' feet an' fried taters--crisp, brown, fried taters. Oh, Lord!"

"Be quiet!" snarled the Missing Link, "and do a perish here from thirst while that cow of a man swills his fill and makes a fortune out of my mortal agony? No, hanged if I do."

The Missing Link howled again, and Madame