At one o'clock the jibberwock exteriors of Ocean Avenue begin fantastic
signs of life. The House of Folly breaks out, over its entire facade,
into a chicken-pox of red and green, blue and purple, yellow, violet,
and gold electric bulbs. The Ocean Waves concession begins its
side-splitting undulations. Maha Mahadra, India's foremost soothsayer
(down in police, divorce, and night courts as Mamie Jones, May Costello,
and Mabel Brown, respectively), loops back her spangled portiere. The
Baby Incubator slides open its ticket-windows. Five carousals begin to
whang. A row of hula-hula girls in paper necklaces appears outside of
"Hawaii," gelatinously naughty and insinuating of hip. There begins a
razzling of the razzle-dazzle. Shooting-galleries begin to snipe into
the glittering noon, and the smell of hot spiced sausages and stale malt
to lay on the air.
Before the Palace of Freaks, a barker slanted up his megaphone, baying
to the sun:
"Y-e-a-o-u! Y-e-a-o-u! The greatest show on the Island! Ten cents to see
the greatest freak congress in the world. Shapiro's freaks are gathered
from every corner of the universe. Enter and shake hands with Baron de
Ross, the children's delight, the world's smallest human being; age,
forty-two years, eight months; height, twenty-eight inches; weight,
fourteen and one-half pounds, certified scales.
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