The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-20

know it was me.
Gee, it looks to me as though pa has
been engaged to the act as the easy
mark in this show. Say, they got pa
to practice on roaring like a lion, SO he
could stand behind the cage when the
lion has a sore throat and roar and
scare folks, and pa has been going
around behind the cages, every eve
ming, when the menagerie is closed,
and the crowd in the main tent, max
ing noises that have made the animals
look at each other as much as to say,
We'll, what do you think of that %
The rhinoceros was so Disguised at
Paducah that he reached out his nose
and took pa on his horn and held him
up to the scorn of the other animals
until pas pants gave way and he was
a sight, and he was so scared that he
got out of the tent and made run for
our train, chased by the police, who
thought he was burglar that had
been eat by house dog.
The worst thing we have had on pa
was at Louisville, where we stayed
over Sunday. Another fellow got
system on slot machines and one day
We beat the machines out of a shot,
bag full of nickels, and when we
showed up at the tent all the fellows
wanted to know how we did it, and pa
said it was gambling, and we ought
not to do it, but he also wanted to
know how We managed to win, and
when we told about it pa said it
was no sin to beat a slot machine,
cause it was an inanimate thing, just
a machine, and anybody who could
beat q nickel in the slot machine at
his own game was equal to a Rookie
Teller.
So after everybody had got excited
about our nickels | told them how to
beat the machine. l told them l didn't
get excited and go rushing in where
angels fear to tread and feed the slot
machine on good hard earned of my
own, but waited until the countrymen
and tenderfeet had fed it on nickels
until it was too full for utterance.
When the machine swelled out
like it was blowed up, and it kind of
wheezed, like it was ready to cough
up and was only waiting for an eX-
cuse, I put q cough loZenger about the
size of a nickel in the slot and turned
the diaphram. The machine shudder-
EIDE minute and then had a regular
hemorrhage and coughed up a tin
cup cup-ful of nickels into my hand,
and the machine seemed to rest easy.
and take nourishment from the silly
fellows, who thought they could beat
it.
Well, sir, the whole crowd was so
a slot machine, and finally they bought
nearly all my cough lozengers, and
and went out into the night, and pa
and l went along, cause pa said he
understood all the slot machines were
owned by Rockefeller, and he made
more money on them than he did on
Standard oil. and the money that he
gave away to schools and churches
was from his rake-off on his slot ma
cbinpS Pa aid it would he a good
thing if some one could break up the
reprehenSible practice by beating the
blasted machines to a finish
So pa he got a bag to bring back
the nickels in, and bunch of us went
to q store where one whole side of the
place was filed with slot machines,
and the way the people were playing
the game was scandalOuS. Pa watched
q machine until the players had fed it
so it seemed as though it would die
unless it got air, and he stepped up
and put in a loZenger and turned the
wheel, and held the bag under the
spout for the coin, but it didn't come.
Some more fellows put in nickels, and
the machine gave little hacking
coughs and coughed up three or four
nickels, but nothing that seemed at
all in the nature of financial hem
morhage, when pa took another lOzen-
ger and put it in, and by ginger the
machine began to heave up nickelS
like it was in the trough of the sea.
Pa was so excited he forgot to hold
the bag, and the nickes went all over
the floor, and everybody made grab
for them, and pa was showed aside,
and and he SwOre he would have the
place pulled. and just then law Off
Ger took pa in charge because he had
put a cough lozenger in the slot ma
chine, and he searched pa and found
lot more bronchial trochees, and pa
was in for it on q charge of malprac-
tice, for giving cough medicine for the
stomach trouble of the slot machine,
instead of pepsin tablets.
They took pa in the back room and
found his roll, and then man who
said he was a lawyer offered to help
pa, and keep him out of the peniten-
tiary. He told pa the law Of Ken
tucv made the crime of trif1ing with
slot machine the same as breach OF
promise, or arson, and that he would
be lucky if he got off with ten years
in the pen, with thirty days solitary
confinement in a Turkish bath cell,
with niggers for companions.
Pa turned blue and asked the lawyer
if there was no way out OF 1t, ana the
lawyer told him that for $40 in spot
cash he would let him go, and hSht
the case after the snow Had got OUT VI
the State. A hundred and twenty-five
dollars was the amount they found on
pa. and he told them that in as much
as they already had it, they better
KEEP the money and let him go, and
he would always be living example or
the terrors of gambling.
So they let pa go, and all he way
to the train he told he hoped this eX-
perience would be a lesson to us not
to covet the money of the rich, and as
far as he was concerned, John II.
Rockefeller could go plum to thunder
with his money after this.
Then we got to the car, and found
about a dozen of the circus men who
had been out to beat the slot machines,
broke flat, and l had to divide my
shot bag of nickels with them, that |
had won before | let them into the