Stowe, the circus agent, laughed until his sides ached. He was informed by the others that Alfred was a great minstrel and he volunteered to find him a place with some first class minstrel organization the coming winter. Stowe played the banjo and carried the instrument with him. All the local minstrel band were introduced to him. He played and sang with them and within twenty-four hours he owned the town, including the printing office. The type-setters did not have to wait for copy; Stowe had quantities. The printers were not compelled to decipher the peculiarities of anyone's handwriting; Stowe's copy was printed and punctuated. Such copy had never been worked from in the office before. Of course all the agent's copy treated of Thayer & Noyse Great Circus. Harrison got to himself finally. He could make himself very agreeable when he so desired. Hurd insisted that there should be other matter written up. In this Stowe acquiesced. He scribbled off political, local and other matter at a rapid rate, nor did he stop there. He gave the contract to Isaac Vance of the Marshall House to feed all people and stock with the circus. There were no stable tents in those days nor did anyone stop on the lot. Canvassmen, hostlers and actors--all in the hotels. Vance got a big contract; Stowe secured a half column advertisement for the paper, as he did from several others. The extra appeared, at first glance, as fat as the regular edition. When Baggy Allison tired, Stowe worked the press. He rolled, folded and fed until the extra edition was off the press and ready for distribution. Among his printed matter was a quarter sheet, with the portraits of Thayer and Noyse, and a small amount of reading matter printed on one side only. He dug up a can of red ink from some unexplored recess where it had lain since the presidential campaign of 1860. He had three or four funny mule cuts. He wrote a funny line or two, made a rude cut resembling Hurd, informing the public that Hurd would ride the trick mule circus day. This bill was printed without the knowledge of Hurd. It was folded in the extra and thus distributed. This fact makes valid Alfred's claim of another honor for Brownsville, namely: that the _Brownsville Clipper_ was the first paper in this country to issue a colored supplement. Of course the word "supplement" was not in a newspaper's vocabulary at that time. Another merit this supplement possessed, it was really humorous, and the humor was apparent, even to the people of that day, and that is more than the colored supplements of today can lay claim to. Charley Stowe was not only the prime mover in all that pertained to the issuance of the extra but he hired a horse and buggy and a boy to assist Alfred in its distribution.