"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. With this outfit they campaigned for one season; in the fall they bought a museum in St. Louis and settled themselves as impresarios. "Now, in my numerous meetings with Cap. I had never thought to ask his name, so when I saw an 'ad' in the _Clipper_ stating that Sheldon & McClintock was in need of a good full-toned lecturer that doubled in brass, I just sat me down in my ignorance and dropped them a line. They sent me a ticket to where I was sidetracked up in Michigan, and I hurried down. "'Oh, it's you, is it?' says Cap., as I piked into the ten by twelve office and announced myself. 'Well, I've heard you throw a spiel and think you'll do. But I didn't know that you played brass. What's your instrument?' "Now, I had a faint sentiment from the beginning that this clause in their bill of requirements would get me into trouble, for I knew no more about band music than a he goat knows about the book of common prayer. "'I do the cymbals,' says I. "'What!' snorts Cap., rearing up; 'I thought you wrote that you played brass?' "'Well,' says I, 'ain't cymbals brass?' "It must have been my cold nerve that won Cap.'s regard, for he placed me as 'curio hall' lecturer and advertising man at twenty a week. "The museum of Sheldon & McClintock proved to be a great notch. More fake freaks were thought out, worked up and exhibited during the course of that winter season than I would care to count. Then there was a small theater attached in which they put on very bad specialties and where painful-voiced young men and women warbled sentimental ballads about their childhood homes and stuff of that character. These got about ten dollars a week and had to do about thirty turns a day; they lived in their make-up and got so accustomed to grease paint before the end of their engagements that they felt only half dressed without it. "The trick made money, and in about a year McClintock cut loose and went into a patent promoting scheme. "Shortly afterward the first 'continuous house' was opened in St. Louis, and the novelty of the thing was a body blow to Cap. He made a good fight, but lost money every day; and at last he imparted to me in confidence that if business did not improve he could see himself getting out the shells and limbering up on them preparatory to going out and facing the world once more. "'The bank will stand for three hundred thousand dollars' worth more of my checks,' says he, 'and after they're used up I'm done.'