"He began to cut down expenses with the reckless energy of a man who saw the poor-house looming ahead for him; the results was that his bad shows grew worse, and the attendance wasn't enough to dust off the seats. The biggest item of expense about the place was 'Mighty Mardo,' the boa-constrictor; his diet was live rabbits, and a twenty-foot snake with a body as thick as a four-inch pipe can dispose of good and plenty of them when he takes the notion. Cap. began to feed him live rats, and the mighty one soon began to show the effects of it. "'He'll die on you,' says I to Cap. one day. "'Let him,' says he; 'the rabbits stay cut out.' "One day a fellow came along with a high-schooled horse that he wanted to sell. He had more use for ready money just then than he had for the nag, so he offered to put it in cheap. But Cap. waved him away. "'I'll need the money to buy meals with before long,' says he to the fellow, 'so tempt me not to my going hungry.' "This little incident seemed to make the old man feel bad; he locked himself up in the office for four hours or so communing with his inner self; but when he came out he was looking bright and gay. "'Say,' says he, 'I've changed my mind and just bought that horse.' "'I didn't see the man come back,' says I. "'I made the deal over the 'phone,' says Cap. Then he pushes a thick wad of penciled stuff at me. 'Here's some truck I want you to take over to the printing house,' he goes on. 'When it's out and up the brute will be well known.' "I takes a look over the copy, and my hat was lifted two inches straight off my head. The first one read something like this: ADMIRAL THE TALKING HORSE TALKS LIKE A HUMAN BEING VOCAL ORGANS DEVELOPED LIKE THOSE OF A MAN HEAR HIM SING THE BASS SOLO "DOWN IN THE DEPTHS" TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS TO ANY ONE PROVING THESE CLAIMS FAKE IN THE SLIGHTEST DEGREE "'Reads good, don't it?' asks Cap., sort of beaming through his nose-pinzes. 'But give a look at the others.' "The next one was as bad as the first: ADMIRAL!!! THE HORSE WHO RECITES THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN A DEEP BASS VOICE AND WITH PERFECT ENUNCIATION "'I didn't hear the fellow say the skate could do that kind of stuff,' says I, just a bit dazed, after looking over a lot more of it. "'He only handed it to me as a sort of last card,' says Cap., 'and that's what made me change my mind about buying him. Get five thousand twelve sheets in yellow and red; ten thousand three sheets; fifteen thousand block one sheets with cut of the horse. And you can place an order for as many black and white dodgers as they can turn out between this and the end of the week. It's a big card and we're going into it up to our eyebrows.' "If I had had time to consider anything but hustling, I might have thought the thing was a fake. But it was the old man's game and I left him to do the worrying. I threw rush orders into the printers and soon had the presses banging away on the stuff desired.