Show A W v 1 A LUNGED AT hima tiberius smith HE LEADS TO VICTORY copyright by B bowleg BY HUGH I 1 never lad the good fortune to neet tiberius smith the veteran showman eh but I 1 have known that oth er remarkable man dally campbell and from his lips heard many chronicles of hla patron s hardy and unusual colnes As he told me these yarns his eyes often grew moist and he would murmur in parentheses ah but he waa a man heaven knows why alg folks dubbed him tiberius maybe to get away from the smith but when it came to writing down the real answer he was the only roman on the asphalt I 1 first met campbell at the away from home clab and as I 1 came to fonow him I 1 learned to love him and through him bla old master and thua as the winter nights drove us to cur pipes and the cozy companionship of the blazing hearth he detailed that which has until now escaped the public ken except as garbled press reports have at times hinted at inez situations without furnishing the solution I 1 can see now that smith in his worldwide wanderings in search of circus and menagerie furnishings nish ings or in piloting some cal venture was the blind factor in many a halt published equation it I 1 remember correctly I 1 had been commenting on the frequency ot revolutions in quarrelsome central amer lea when campbell first opened bis heart filled his pipe and began the narrative which waa to charm me tor many an evening it Is true he began that cen aral america has been a bargain coun ter in petty war fares for years and has peddled out more genuine lem ons to would be caesara caesars than any other spot of its size on the map some of the disturbances have been exceedingly eccentric others just plain vulgar killings but I 1 doubt it ever there was a more picturesque insurrection than that in which tiberius smith of vermont filled the president B cozy corner for one week and with his reserve battery of comic opera singers and ats ever reassuring ha ha defied all comers the passing of tiberius and bis admonis is not mentioned in history nor did the consular agent hear of it in time to stir up the washington newspaper pea alth sanguinary wires and probably the slob element wn there known as the common y cople have long since forgotten Y buttee story 0 that glorious wely should make brave reading nevertheless and the battle put up by the green mountain man and his corps ot gayly clad sopranos and a light brigade of giggling danseuses danse uses re enforced by sad voiced contraltos altos an alpine shepherds di a regulation pi rate and much green boota truck dentally demonstrates that art and science need not always stagger to the ropes because of ranting brute force tib you know we called him tib or short bad a way of making everyone and everything loyal to him when his round brown eyes concen grated in two beady twinkles you bad to believe in him and do his biddings he believed in himself and simply bubbled over with assurance when making the hardest shots imaginable and he had the blam edest schemes yet most of them pulled through in one way or another it he dlan t land what he was gunning tor bed net something else almost as good so when be decided to take a comic opera troupe to guatemala city mazlo ad ams sidestepped side stepped thirty per week in order to lead the ballet and I 1 was hypnotized to go as first tenor there were M of ua all told four men and two dozen women tiberius said he could surround enough aztec gold in guatemala to make bondholders bond holders of us all for life he believed it and hang me if we all after hed given luxurious life la tie a con about the the tropics the croesus do of tho niue pacific and the like it t ine dons that baught mazle adams and he other girls well we sailed in november from friece Fri eco bound for san jose d gua demala from there we were to take to the capital our troupe was about all the little coastwise I 1 1 aboard and hea we were bobbing about off champerico Cham perico it began to blow up a regular hummer the captain wanted to land us there but tib said san jose or zero and on we rolled I 1 was sorry and so were the others tor the storm now became a hurricane and the captain decided he coulden couldn t make san jose as that port had no harbor but Is simply an open roadstead I 1 believe we were to luff or to loaf in the offing or thereabouts and then beat in when the wind went down but we dlan t instead we boomed right by in the night and after a miserable ten hours found ourselves in arcate a small town that would make a sewing ma chine feel homesick arcate Is made up of a dozen wood en houses built down close to the beach and one street running back about five blocks from the shore along this artery of travel are a handful of native huts of bamboo sticks covered with leavea of the co chanut palm while in the of the burg poisonous pools ut stagnant water fill the air with miasma steam ing thickly n the 80 degree heat mazle adams crept down to the bag gage deck and wept bitterly cheer up little one encouraged tiberius for every tear now shed you shall have a piece of ice to wear on those fairy fingers but as it the heavy atmosphere and sickening odors were not enough the tin boiler in our little craft blew up near daybreak and we were forced to go ashore in our where we shivered in rugs and old sails until the broiled sun relieved the situation to our joy we found all of our stage trunks had been saved but our everyday every day finery was naught get busy cried tiberius in his merry bass unpack the trunks and slip into the calico of act I 1 when we reach cuaty we II 11 have some nice new linen suits remember children im all that ever was multiplied by two and what we had to do and a nice looking lot we were mazle and the other fairies in pink tights and long be spangled cloaks dlan t go so bad with the furnishings but the pirate george II anscom and I 1 the alpine shepherd kind of jarred on the rest of the furniture bibs rotund energetic form was encased in a tin suit of medieval armor and he swore it felt good by the time the town was fairly awake we were all arrayed in our picnic clothes and I 1 guess they thought we were a sure enough bunch of fairies while the dusky rabble was enjoying us with wonder lit eyes a tall thin skinned man approached pro ached and greeted us in good old anglo sax he said he was alfred jones more commonly known on the coast as banana jones he had lived in the country for 16 years and was too lazy to leave it he informed us be could talk any lingo between pur batory and guatemala city and tib at once hired him as ticket seller tib himself threw a fine cluster of spanish having toured circus through south america once on a time but he was shy on dialects so banana jones was delegated to scout tor some diligences and he said he would once he was able to tear his eyes from mazle and was just explain ing that he seen a white worn an tor ten years when EO tatter demal ions armed with ancient guns and a large accumulation of realty on their hands and bare feet came howling down the lane I 1 forgot said banana jones alm ply there s a bit of revolution on and the insurrectionists hold the town they are expecting a president from frisco the junta was to send them down a regular fire eater this week me cried tib im on I 1 m the president I 1 go a mile in less than nothing I 1 never did start a game but what something good turned up unexpectedly tell em im their feudal lord well ill be blasted gasped banana jones then he added do I 1 get all the banana privileges be teen here and sonsonate Sons onate you certainly do answered tl bekius drawing his tin rapier and jolting his helmet into a jaunty po joada raa towards the mob and be gan ir a harangue in which don senor Tl berlo and viva la libertad figured extensively and when he was done the ragamuffins raga muffins danced about us in glee and one squint eed ruffian sough to encompass mazle adams fair waist with his dirty paw but tib lunged ferociously at him with his toledo ohio blade and the gang evidently set us down for born fight ers they dope you out as high muck a muck and accept you said jones but they want to know it you ve brought any arms and powder tell em I 1 ve brought art music beauty and science and that against that quartette prosaic explosives area t deuce high in a well thumbed euchre deck retorted tib grandly then he tipped us the cue and we all burst into a few sweet strains of song as sung la the ensemble of the dear gazelle it fetched em sir it fetched em to their knees they groveled I 1 guess have chucked the whole blooming revolution tor reserved seats in our show but tl berlus bad made up his mind to act the conqueror and ho told jones to take us to the most pretentious habitation in town that he might confes cate it for government purposes A miserable little hotel built to accommodate about 16 was the best thing in this line and into it we went while all the regular boarders departed via the back door but what about weapons persisted jones dubiously tiberius pondered thoughtfully and hanscom the pirate tapped the hardware in his belt and said weve got them all here we have the reminded tiberius that A machine gun cried jones eagerly tiberius looked at him sadly and then explained it was merely a device to throw moving pictures on a screen but pictures wont hurt em bemoaned jones no cried tiberius exultantly but it 11 scare em lelce the deuce why man in that one big box I 1 ve columns ot in fantry heavy artillery troops of cavalry a little drummer boy a red cross society and the privates fare well to his aged mother its the most economical method of transport ing field forces in the world then alter he had spoken several more pieces jones saw the tion and bis hard baked face cracked into various smiles if they 11 only caroe by night he murmured you see we carted the picture ma chine around to amuse the audience between the acts of the dear gazelle and almost all of the pictures were war scenes fortunately it had es injury in the explosion and only needed to be dried out to be in fighting trim but the rest of us baan t come down to central america to build up republics and we were in a fair way to mutiny hanscom bad just killed a tarantula and was now writing a yellow wafer weepy letter to his old mother in utoca N Y mazle was sobbing that she did not see any chance of freezing her digits with guatemala ice and the rest of the bunch were swearing or sniveling as the sex demanded when tiberius visited us children said he kindly list why weep weve arrived here the boat Is busted we can t leave till another comes it seems two factions are sparring for the stranglehold strangle hold on this forsaken land it we remain neu aral one side or the other or both will pick us up and sell us as slaves to owners ot the dank mangrove swamps tib know a man grove from a yard of felt but it sound ed good and he used it think mazle of being compelled to pluck rubber gum with those fragile illy stalks he said think gertrude of making bean bread tor some chocolate frosted brute that remembers when he walk on all fours now if I 1 can obtain the backing of one party we are that much stronger and will come out all right remember tiberius smith always wins why children once I 1 fell so low that I 1 was forced to join an uncle toms cabin company and play I 1 was ice in the ohio river did I 1 stay ice ask me today to day you behold in me the sole owner of the dear gazelle opera troupe and president grotem protem of or name under high heavens they call it of course there was a lot ot horse sense in tib s talk but I 1 knew he was placing president just through his lust 0 empire he told me afterwards that it he could have held down the job he had intended to map out a canal route and sneak a stake from undo sam but to return to the well filled inn and the homesick allies ot the ansur that afternoon tib and jaaes the only approach 1 4 1 sf wt an from the interior the only road over which the enemy could come this ran dead against a big white cliff and then swung sharp to the left and made a bee line to the beach tib deployed the native troops far out beyond the cliff with instructions to bike back to the hotel it they scented the toe in a casual way he led them to believe hat they wouldn t have to do much just take prisoners after the new president had shaken a little parlor magic out of his cuff this pleased them immensely and they said we were their saviors jupiter sta tors and all that kind ot stuff but we were in a very disagreeable situation the warm climate make the gazelle rags so bad for the girls and we men knew we could get used to our makeup make up atter a while but only a narrow strip ot beach separated us from the sharks and tib and his picture game from the dusky trl flers in front however it was grin and bear it and we were there to tote the machine and fixings up to a point near the white cliff no one troubled us that night but on the next a horrible screeching aroused us from uneasy slumbers and when the pirate and I 1 got down into the open we could just catch a glimpse ot tib s armor twinkling in the moon light far ahead bring your shepherds hom ru pert cried tib he sometimes called me by ray stage name and I 1 obeyed him A long lean valentine guided me up the road to the firing line to where tib and jones were stationed to my horror I 1 found them facing the cliff backs turned to the enemy for heavens sake I 1 cried let us receive our wounds in the breast and die facing the tyrant when I 1 begin to let loose uncle sam just sound some merry lay on the horn ignored tib give em boots and saddles and a bit of that tyrolese warble I 1 was so choked up I 1 dlan t believe I 1 could wind the horn but tib and jones were cool enough tib had the machine all ready and as a tearful howl went up behind us he fumed on the illuminations there on the cliff pranced the fighting seventh cavalry while banana jones split the shadows with hoarse shouts and military or ders accompanying his vocal stunts by burling rocks among the bushes in short making enough noise for whole regiment an would ye save me bloat cried tib forgetting my peril really bellev ing that the brave phantoms on the rock stood ready to succor me I 1 fixed my eyes on old glory and gave them dixie any one ought to fight by that tune between notes I 1 could hear the great gasp of astonishment from the toe as they halted then the crackling in the bushes began to recede and banana jonea chuckled theyva vamoosed 1 best pictures I 1 ever saw you can safely gamble that the in down on the beach looked upon us as real warriors when the sun rose and brought no invaders tiberius was so chesty that he wanted to pursue the enemy and incidentally annex san salvador but as white cliffs arent always handy we held him back well three days passed and our stage costumes began to look tarnished then came the second attack our scouts said it was a different party and when they approached the pass it was hardly dark enough to operate the machine tib commanded us all to follow him and arranged us in a semicircle semi circle position for the curtain raise in act II 11 now warble he commanded and wo did with a fringe of limelight lime light playing over our rich vestments and scared faces what the enemy thought on seeing 28 fays all covered gold and cut glass giving the serenade will never be known but it staggered em mazle adams and the other benuses sang and looked like angels and the brownies dlan t care to buck up against a celestial choir without any investigation it you can hold cm a few minutes we 11 win in a canter cried tib at that we all stalked forward a few paces with the best lilt of the whole piece pealing from our ruby lips then came the welcome order to stand aside and the faithful old picture gallery began to squirt photos on the cliff what with the howling of the ballet the hoarse cries of jones the bugle calls and prancing pictures the brownies were |