The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-10

whistled in absolutely errorless style about
a dozen bars of the grand aria from Err
nani" and it sounded like q flue obigato
performed by a man who had been prac-
ticng that one air from infancy.
whats the name of it? l don't know
I suppose 1 can whistle about seven mil
lion of those dago things, but don't know
the name of one of them.
"Wel, l learned a lot of that kind OF
whistles at the Tegucigalpa opera (the
opera house was a big 'dobe joint, by the
way and it was the only thing that saved
me from going to work. ! sprung 'em on
the greaser people that walked around the
plaza after night, and they didn't do
thing but throw me all the coin they had
when they heard me, a red headed gringo
that knew only two words Of spanish
'sabe' and 'mamma'-whistng the hard,
trilly tunes that they'd been raised on. To
them it was just like as if a dago just
landed would walk along here now aud
whistle Rosie OGrady' and The Star
Spangled Banner without a break.
Il saw that this was pretty good graft
and 50 | kept right on south, learning as
I went along about all the tunes that
were ever written in Spanish or Italian.
I hit up pretty near all Of Central and
South America, whistling only O nights,
when the people down in those parts wake
up, after snooZing all day, and l had pias-
tres to burn all the time. The only time 1
got the worst of it down in that country
was when the bare-footed tin soldiers in
La Libertad, Salvador, soaked me into a
dungeon for a couplerof weeks. They rsus-
pected me of doing b rubbet-neeBiT}9 act
there for Antonio Ezeta, the chap that
made a business of building up govern
ments for the rake-off he made in after
ward wrecking 'em. The United States
consul got me out of that mess.
'Those sun burnt people down in Central
and South America were easy money. I'd
give EN- their national airs with varia-
lions wherever l went, and, as those peO-
pie down there are always scrapping
among themselves, and fun O. gun cot
ton the whole lot of them, this patriotic
whistle gag went with a rush, and l never
passed the tinkle bag without making a
good haul-in. The national air business
came near getting me in a scrape down in
Chile, though. / went to Santiago, Chile,
from Lima, Peru, at a time when those
two dinky little countries were trying to
tear each other apart. 1 had had a reg
ular mint, whistling the Peruvian national
air and lot of military rum songs while
in Lima. When / go to Santiago in Chile
the streets were full of bare-hoofed SOL
diers, all of 'em chock-a-block fun of mes
cal, and all yelling the Chilean national
hymn. 1 picked it up from them. BY the
time / was ready to spring it on the Es-
from trying the Chilean brand of hesca
myself, and what did ! do but start to
whistlng the national air of Peru. with
about 5000 people standing around that
hated Peru worsen cobrasi And the whole
5000 of 'em seemed to hear the tune all at
once. / had to make run for It, ana
never got or tried to get peso out Of San
tiago.
81 made n couple of trips to South Amer
lea after this, but I was always glad to
get back to the United States There's a
better graft here after all, anyhow I've
been working the smaller towns in this
country for the past couple of years
towns of the size of Cleveland and Indian
apolis and Denver and Los Angeles. Peo-
pleve got time to give you an ear or two
in the class f towns, and they're dead
easy to work. I get EN- when they're sit
ting on their front steps or in their Yards
after dark,a the folks all do in towns like
those I'm taking about. I stand out In
the middle of the street, kind o. lost in
the cleaning and looking very much on
the bum, as / explained, and whistle me-
lancholy and lonesome tunes. There's al
ways some guy around who's feeling soft
and Woody, and he calls the attention of
the others to my whistling. All the rest
of it's easy. l whistle 'em anything they
want, paying most attention to what the
women folks like, and when pass around
the hat they all of 'em come up nearly
always with white metal, for it don't seem
like as If they care to give a man copper
junk like they throw at dagoes.
I'm going to play the swell rum Joints
in New York this winter. No, I'm not
afraid of getting the dead face over there.
New York people may be pretty foxy, hut
/ guess they can be conned like other peo-
pie. If I can't whistle the dough out of
their clothes, they'll be new ones on me-