when i got there i saw a big man with a big
mustash talking with Hiram Mingo a nigger boy.
i asted him if he had a gob for me and he looked
at me and sed i was prety skinny but perhaps he
cood fix me. he asted us into the tent. i woodent
go for i was afrade of the wild men of Bornio but
he sed the tent was emty. so we went in and he sed
he had bad luck. That both his wild men was sick
and he had a wife and nine small children, and
he had got to earn there bread and the only way to
do it was to get sum kind hearted feller like us to be
wild men. he sed if we wood do that for him he
wood pay us 2 dollars apeace and his nine children
and his sick wife and blind mother wood pray for
us on her gnees. i was auful sorry for him he
looked so sad. he sed he had looked up a lot of
feller and talked with a lot and we was the only
fellers that was smart enuf to do it. he sed he never
was gnew to maik a mistake in a feller. he gnew he
cood trust us enny time. so i asted him what we
wood have to do and he sed he wood paint us up
like wild men and put on sum firs and leperd skins
and sum brass rings on our hine legs and a necklace
of tiger claws and all we wood have to do
was to snarl and say yowk and let out howls, and try
to get at peeple. i dident want to black up but
Hiram dident care becaus he is a nigger. so is asted
him if the black wood ware off and he sed yes and
so after a while i sed i wood. well he made me
take off all my close and he painted me all over
black and he put sum black stuf on my hair and
twisted out all the points whitch stuck up, then he
wound a leperd skin round me and round Hiram
and i had a neck lace of tiger claws and 2 brass
rings round my hine legs. then he took sum red
paint and he painted sum big scars on us where
tigers had toar us. when he showed me in the
looking glass how it looked it scart me. i never
would have gnew it was me. i was wirse looking
than a babboon.
then he learned us how to snarl and yowl and
make faces. he sed it was easier for me to make
faces than enny feller he had ever gnew and he sed
it must come natural to me. He sed i wood scare
a gorilla white. then he lerned us how to fite and
sed we must snarl and fite when he was out on
the platform telling the peeple about us and then we
wood rush in and crack a whip and fire a pistol in
our faces and stop us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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