The worst case was the hippopotamus.  He was so big, and had such big nostrils, that I laid about half a pound of snuff on the side of his tank, and when he snuffed it up his nose he got it all.  I heard a howl from the tank and the herd, who was the leader of the sneezers, and I told pa to come on, ’cause Vessuvious was going to erupt.

Pa came on the run, just as he was, and then the worst happened.  I think the hippo went under water when he found the sneeze was coming, for just as pa got to the tank the water flew into the air like a torpedo had exploded under a battle-ship, and the hippo had sneezed all right and pa and the audience which had followed him were drenched and deafened by the explosion.  The hippo had blown the water all out of his tank, and he lay at the bottom, on his side, sneezing little sneezes not louder than the report of a six-pound cannon, and panting for breath.  Then he raised his head, got up on his feet, and opened his mouth like a gash cut in a steer by a cow catcher of an engine, and he yawned, and I guess he got the lockjaw, ’cause he kept his mouth open all the afternoon to get the air, like a soprano singer in a choir, who has been fed a cayenne pepper lozenger by the tenor, just before she gets up to sing:  “A Charge to Keep, I Have.”

We went around and inspected the sneezing animals with the manager, and he complimented me by saying I had saved the show from becoming an aggregation of stuffed animals, only fit for a taxidermist studio, and made every animal show that he had ginger in him.  He wanted me to try my snuff cure on the performers and freaks, ’cause they were getting to be dead ones.

Well, before the day was over at Wilmington, Del., pa was scared worse than he ever was in all his life before.  The state of Delaware is the only state that punishes criminals by tying them up and whipping them on the bare back with a cat-o’-nine-tails, and all our men had been warned to be good while they were in Delaware, ’cause if they committed any crime there was no power on earth that could save them from being publicly horsewhipped.  Pa himself impressed it on the men to look out that they didn’t get into any trouble.  Gee, but the fear of a public whipping makes men good.

Twenty years ago some hold-up men from New York robbed a bank in Delaware, and were caught, and given 50 lashes apiece on the bare back, by a big negro, and there has never been a burglary in Delaware since.  We thought we would play a joke on pa, so the manager told pa that constables were looking for him to arrest him for cruelty to animals, for kicking a camel in the stomach, and hitting the camel with an iron bar, and that if pa didn’t want to be publicly horsewhipped on the bare back he better skip out for Washington, D.C., where we would show in a couple of days, and wait for us.