O!  O! but the Jap didn’t do a thing to pa.  He grabbed pa by the wrist, and he seemed to be having an epileptic fit, and pa’s leg shot out so his feet hit a guy pole, and then the Jap pulled him back like he was a rubber ball on a string, and then he took pa by the elbow and held him out at arm’s length, and then swung him around a few times and let go of him, and he fell down among the reserved seats which representatives of the press occupy.  Pa stood on one ear on a crushed chair, with his legs over the railing, and when he came to, the newspaper men wanted to interview pa.  Pa said all he remembered was that the air ship was sailing over the town, and they threw him out for ballast, and he struck a church spire and bounded onto a warehouse filled with dynamite, which exploded when he struck it, and the neighbors picked his remains up on a dustpan and emptied them in here, Then he asked if his head was on straight, and the circusmen took him away to the hospital tent.

[Illustration:  “O, But the Jap Didn’t Do a Thing to Pa!”]

The circus hands separated the Russians and Japs, or at least pulled off the Japs, and the Russians limped to the dressing-room, and their act was cut out.  Unless the terms of peace between Japan and Russia include the belligerents in our show, there will be rows every day.

Pa came to the car on crutches that night just before the train pulled out for Philadelphia, and wanted to know where I was during the fight.  He said he rushed right in and grabbed a Jap in one hand and a Russian in the other, and bumped their heads together, and threw one of them towards the ring, and the other up among the seats, and he wanted to know if I thought he killed either or both of them.

I hate a boy that will deceive his father, but I told him there was talk about two performers, one a Russian and the other a Jap, that were left at the morgue, but I didn’t know anything sure about it, and pa said:  “I was afraid I should hurt them, but they brought it on themselves by breaking the rules of the show against fighting during a performance,” and pa rolled over and groaned in his berth, and went to sleep and snored so the freaks wanted to have a nose bag, such as horses eat out of, pulled over pa’s face.

The queerest thing that ever happened in the circus business in this country took place at Germantown, Pa.  The teamsters went on a strike at Pittsburg, for increase in wages and shorter hours, and for two days the management had a great time.

We had to get drays to haul the stuff from the train to the lot, and then our teamsters got the local draymen to join them, and when we got ready to haul the stuff back to the train nobody would do any work, and the walking delegates from the Teamsters’ union just took possession of the show, and we were stuck, like an automobile when the gasoline gives out.

We had got to looking at the teamsters as of no particular account when they walked out, but when they wouldn’t work, they became the most important part of the show, and after the show was over the managers who had told the striking teamsters to go plumb, found that they had gone plumb, and they had to rush all over Pittsburg and find them, and grant their demands, and get them to go to work.