Evening star., 1921-10-02
A s a matter Of fact, his name
~ was not Androcles, but Orley

was HoJ <AudTOSaCo, oNe OA~SS
~ Jones. and he was commonly
called "Oily" for three reasons:
'Oily" Is not unlike Orley and made
a good substitute for it in COM
pany where substitute names were
the rule. The old hands of the Hog
gins-weltx shows had an invariable
method of hazing a newcomer-they
called him out of his proper name.
This had the effect of showing that
the new hand was an unimportant
bit of nothing -at-all and put him In
his proper place at once. II his
name was Mike they called him
Algernon until he had writhed into
proper state of meekness or had
objected and been beaten into right
state of mind Then his new handle
was softened to Algy. ana II ne
proved to be a good fellow ne mignt
become AL, but never-as long as ne
was with the HogGins-Weitz Duncn-
was he Mike again
Even Katie OHare, whose ring
name was Mile. Rosa Montmorency'
was Susie to all connected with the
show, and old Hoggins, safe in ms
office in the Metropolitan Tower IN
New York most OF the time the show
was on the road, was "Bif Hog
gins. The name had something to
do with the fact that he had once
owned cheap wild west show. a
paltry imitation Of Buffalo Bits
tion of being dubbed "Biffalo Bull.
The two other reasons for the
name were that Orley Jones had
certain gentleness that might. by
extreme stretching, be calledl unctu-
Gus. "Orley. hey?" said Codge Biggs.
name. well. you look oily. all
right" And the name clung. and 1t
chung the tighter because Mr.. Jones
had a way-due to his New York
birth-of saying. II had to get up
oily this mornin," or The oily bold
gets the woim."
THE little man, with his eyes set
too close together and his general
air of having served a long term as
a sweepout in cheap barroom.
joined the Hoggins-Weltz crowd at
Davenport. Iowa. How he ever hap
pened to be at Davenport was
luck and ready for any kind of meal
ticket, and when Codge Biggs, our
canvas man. had knocked out three
drunken roughneck stakemen with
one of the iron-capped blue tent
stakes. he took Oily and two other
vacancies. AT Iowa City Oily dou-
hled with the camels, leading one
of the tan-colored brutes In the
parade, and the camel bit his arm.
He had no luck with animals. II he
stood in front of the cockatoo cage
crazy with rage. They seemed to
take Oily as personal insult Of
some sort. and screamed their heads
half off.
You may have read Of men who can
go into the woods and sit down, and
in a few minutes squirrels come up
and kiss them, and dicky-birds come
and roost on their shoulders, and
beavers and badgers and things come
and purr against their legs. Oily was
just as different from this as he could
be. Even pink-eyed rabbits tried to
bite him. They say the reason some
men make such hit with animals is
because they are innocent of heart
and mind. II that is so, Oily must
have been the toughest kind Of So
phisticated criminal.
That was one reason Oily was as
signed to the animal-tent. Nothing
makes such hit with the crowd as
to have the animals yowl and jump at
the cage-bars and show meanness,
and all Oily had to do was to walk
dTOunu inSlue tHe tent 10 nave wave
of yowls follow him. Even the
guinea-pigs in the Happy Family
would try to bite the cage bars when
they saw Oily. And 1t takes some
thing to make a guinea-pig show
ferocity. Oily was the only thing
ever knew that could do 1t.
We had Jap with the show once
who used a kind OF hair-oil that drove
little fellow and about fifty years
old. and his star stunt was to 60
away up in the top of the big top
a pulley and slide down a long wire. ;
hanging by the hair and whirling
around and around until a couple Of
rough-necks caught him just as he
reached the ground Along In '9S his
hair began to come out, and he wrote
TO an uncle of his in vladivostok
for some of this hair-oil. l guess
it was one of the good old family
remedies he know about: anyway, 1t
was SO strong that II the Spaniards
had heard about IL In time they
wouldn't have had to invent garlic.
the big top doped up with the stun the
eight trained seals were doing their
stunt on the stage between the two
big rings They gave one Whit, said
something that sounded like q sea-
sick army and scooted! One Of them
like snail into a shell. and he went in
so far and 30 hard that we had to
cut the tuba off him with q can
opener. His head was jarnmed into
the funnel of the tuba SO hard that
one Of us had to hold down one of the
keys of the tuba so the seal could
get a breath. Every time the seal
drew deep. frightened breath the
tuba played a note. 1t was B nat
below tho scale and whenever 1 hear
that note now can smell Yama Toys
hair-oil.
There must have been something
about Oily Jones that had this effect !
on all the birds and beasts. I don't
know what 1t was, and neither did
OILY. Later on we tried every way i,
possible to discover what it was; but
that comes later in this story. It
about the time when Oily was dy.
ing OF love, and when he used to
tell me all his troubles, he told me
with tears in his eyes he had never
done naughty deed. and I believe |
him. Maybe 1t was just that the ami
mails did not like his looks. Perhaps
they did not like his eyes We tried
to figure out that 1t was his scent
every man and animal has a distinc-
tive one. as bloodhound owners know.
And We tried diet. Oily was fond OF
onions. and we thought maybe that
was 1t. He went without onions for
weeks. and 1t made no difference. we
tried rubbing cotton on Oily and then
putting the cotton in the cages with
the brutes. You know how a dog or
a cat or any other animal will go for
anything scented with q scent they ,
ton to cotton scented with Oily. They
just did not like him. During those
days Oily Just moped around the show
and didn't care whether he lived or