The Press., 1916-08-24
The Old Snowman He Tells How He Invented a
 New Animal.
 By M. QUAD
Copyright, 1916, by the Mcclure
 Newspaper Syndicate.

"Gentlemen," began the old snowman as his little crowd of admirers assem-
 bled to listen to his tale, "did any o1 | you ever hear of an animal called s "guyasticutus?
 There never was such an animal, | replied one. There Is such a word as guyasticutus. but it Is a slang word When you call a man d guyasticutus you express your contempt for him." | My friends, you are wrong, and shall take great pleasure in convincing you of the fact. I can't say that such an animal exists now, but he surely did | forty years ago, for I invented him myself"
 Give us the yarnr was called out from every one.
 Well, I was head keeper of the me nagerie travelling with the circus. We had started out of winter quarters with five hyenas in the cage, but four of them had gone dead on us. I guess il
 was pneumonia that carried them off The one left was an old he hyena, and he could stand any sort of weather and take the bumps of the country high
 ways. However, after his companions had departed this life we saw change In him. He didn't fall sick. but he got lonesome and sulky.
 There were daily complaints that our hyena was a fraud, and I was | wondering what we could do about il | when the boss came to me one day and said:
 "'George, that old hyena is making | trouble for us. Whats the matter with him anyhowY
 "T guess he is tired of being a hy- ena,' I replied.
 "'But he can't be anything else, can hep
 "Why. We can't make bird of him, but maybe l can make some other ami mal of him..
 "Then do 1t, man.
 'I changed the hyena's food a dozen times and gave him whisky to lap instead of water" said the old show man, but it didn't improve him any. and I set myself to wonder how I could make him over. The bright idea came to me at last, and one Sunday, when we had lazy day of it. I bought various paints and brushes. There was a farmers hired man hanging around the show. He had deserted the blow for the romance of the circus. He had offered to work for $5 a week and his board, but I had no room for him. When I got the idea of making the hyena over I beckoned to this chap and said:
 'Joshaway, I will give you $5 . week and your board if you will do the old hyena in the cage over there I want to make a guyasticutus of him
 'Joshaway promised, and the first thing to do was to tie the old hyena up. We got ropes and straps around his legs and a muzzle over his nose and then went to work with the paints.
 Ie didn't give us much trouble; he was too lonesome and homesick for that. We gave him bright green ears: we gave him a bright red nose and red eyebrows; we spotted his body lere and there with green. red, blue yellow and black paints. We put a iOzen rings around his tail. and we painted his legs one color and his feet another. Say, boys, when we got through with that hyena we had to sit back and roar with laughter.
 We had special cage made for aim and gave 1t such a position that only the front with its iron bars could hn fn6 A. nhnfr Ioshaway, the young man who was looking for romance. He did all the alking, but 1t seemed to come from the yuyasticutus. Joshaway had a voice ike the filing of saw, and his talk was n great success. The animal in sront of him went on with long rig narole as to his forest home in Hon. 1uras and what he did there.
 '"The fatal day did not arrive until We had shown that guyasticutus for TWO years and a half. I renewed the paint on him every other Sunday and ,aw to 1t that he had the choicest kind )f food"
 "But what about the fatal day ?'' was lueried.
 "Oh, yes. about that fatal day." re- piled the old snowman. Well, it came about in this way. That young man Joshaway undertook to eat an apple while he was giving his talk, and the seed of the fruit got into his throat md stuck there. He had to choke and cough and sputter, and the fact that here was man somewhere hidden be- hind the gHyasticutus could not be concealed. There were shouts of ex- .itement and derision and calls for an investigation. Half a dozen men press II forward and seized the cage and pulled it off its benches. That same half a dozen men seized Joshaway by he neck or somewhere else as he still :hoked and sputtered over the seeds md brought him out for the crowd to pick on. In just one minute it was plain that the public had been swim lied for years. They had had guyas- icutus instead of a hyena and had fouble their moneys worth, but they wanted their revenge, and they took 1t. The cage was kicked about until it was smashed and it's occupant was killed, ilId they stepped on Joshaway and ooked and pounded him until he would leyer again feel romantic, and the fight 'preal until something like thousand men and women were engaged in 1t. We had to stop the circus performance md pack up and move on, and we had 10 go for full hundred miles before Ne heard the last of our scheme to ,utdo natural history"