I saw her just now, and if you could have seen the look of
distress and terror on her face as she sprang to the old man's side you
would feel as I do about this business. Yon would know, as I do, that
this was no fake, but a square--A, number one--show, packed full and
running over with good things, worth ten times the price of admission.
You'd know that it was just the bulliest show ever seen on this little
old river, and you'd turn in with a will to help me prove it. I am a
stranger, just arrived in town, and never set eyes on this outfit
before; but I'm willing to put up my last dollar on the fact that this
show is so much better than I've said that as soon as you've seen it
once, you'll want to see it right over again, you'll come to it every
evening that it stays here, and then you'll follow it down the river on
the chance of seeing it again. Hello, inside! Turn on your steam, and
set your whirligig to moving."
By this time the good-nature of the audience was fully restored, and,
amid encouraging cries of "That's the talk!" "Ring the jingle-bell and
give her a full head!" "Sweep her out into the current and toot your
horn, stranger!" the panorama began slowly to unroll. The young man
picked up the pointer, and the moment the second picture--a lurid scene
that Cap'n Cod had entitled "The Burning of Moscow"--was fully exposed
to view, he began:
"There you have it, gentlemen! One of the most thrilling events of
this century.
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