The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1898-09-10
Welsh
Of that svengali business. ".

closed his eyes and couldn't open them,
tried to speak and couldn't, and then
awoke to find himself with a dazed
look and frightened smile. In fact,
he did his Fart so well that the most
experienced "horse" could not have
given a better performance. 1t may
be explained that 'horse" is gentle
man who gains livelihood by allow
inQ a mesmerist to stick needles in
him while he is supposedly under the
influence.
You can imagine that "Prof. De
Cardo" was surprised man. He
hadn't made any arrangements with
Welsh, and therefore he had no rea-
son to believe that Welsh would be
subject to the mysterious influence.
He began to think that he was mes
merist and hadn't known it, or else
he concluded that Welsh had decided
to help him out with the show just
to be good fellow. .
Whatever he may have thought, he
kept his nerve with him and put Welsh
through the whole list of specialties,
had him cutting watermelons and
marching with cane for gun, and
a lot of ridiculous stuff. Welsh was
| so earnest and conscientious in his act
ing that he simply laid the other fell
lows in the shade. That was the
trouble. He was too good. The spec
tators began to murmur. They de-
cided that he was confederate, after
all.
One of the ''tests" was that of fish
ing with a cane. The subject stood
ON the edge of the rostrum and held
the walking-stick as pole, and when
ever he had "bite" he would pull IT
ND with an overland sweep. This al
ways tickled the house.
Welsh decided to vary the usual per-
Torrance little. When he pulled in
with his pole he pretended that he had
landed fish, so he made grab for
it, and then there began most ter
rife struggle. He knocked over the
table with the pitcher of water on top
of it, and upset three or four .of the
yokels who were sitting around in the
semi-circle, and then all at once he
shouted: "There it is! There it isl"
and grabbed "Prof. De Cardo" from
behind and swung him around the
stage. Women began to scream and
children cried. Men stood up all over
the house and yelled: stop him!"
Welsh decided that it was about
time for him to get out of the place,
so he suddenly let go of the eminent
mesmerist and shouted: "I'm dog!
I'll bite anyone that touches me! Bow.
wow!"
With that he made dash for the
door, and they say that every man
woman and child in the house shrieked
and tried to crawl under chair when
he was seen to jump over the foot
lights. He got out and ran all the
way to the hotel.
OF course, that ended the show
"Prof. De Cardo" was too agitated tc
offer any explanation, and most OF
the women were in Mysteries.
The town constable was the only
man who knew what to do. He arrest
ed the eminent mesmerist," who
claimed that nothing of the kind had
ever happened to him during his pre-
vious career, and that he had every rea
son to believe that Welsh had delib
erately attempted to break up the
show. Thereupon the constable de
cided that he would arrest Welsh also
Welsh was making arrangements
to get out on the night train when the
constable came up to his room. He
was greatly surprised when the con
stable mentioned arrest" and want
ed to know what he had done. Tit