In San Francisco I caught him in the
act of selling toy balloons on a street corner; in Chicago he was
disposing of old line life insurance with considerable effect; at a
county fair, somewhere in Iowa, I ran across him as he gracefully
manipulated the shells.
"But Cap. did not break permanently into the show business until he
coupled up with the McClintock in Milwaukee. Mac was an Irish
Presbyterian, and was proud of it; he came out of the Black North and
was the most acute harp, mentally, that I had ever had anything to do
with. The Chosen People are not noted for commercial density; but a Jew
could enter Mac's presence attired in the height of fashion and leave it
with only his shoe strings and a hazy recollection as to how the thing
was done.
"Now, when a team like Cap. and Mac took to pulling together, there just
naturally had to be something doing. They began with a small show under
canvas, and their main card was a twenty-foot boa-constrictor, which
they billed as 'Mighty Mardo.' Then they had a boy with three legs, one
of which they neglected to state was made of wood; also a blushing
damsel with excess embonpoint to the extent of four hundred pounds.
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