DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

Well, it don't. But any one would of thought so
the first look. I reckon that bill was some of a
liar herself, not lying outright, but jest hinting a
lie. They is a lot of mean, stingy-souled kind of
people wouldn't never lie to help a friend, but
Doctor Kirby wasn't one of 'em.
"But," I says, "when that crowd finds out
Alonzo ain't going up they will be purty mad."
"Oh," says he, "I don't think so. The American
public are a good-natured set of chuckle-heads,
mostly. If they get sore I'll talk 'em out of it."
If he had any faults at all--and mind you, I
ain't saying Doctor Kirby had any--the one he
had hardest was the belief he could talk any crowd
into any notion, or out of it, either. And he loved
to do it jest fur the fun of it. He'd rather have
the feeling he was doing that than the money any
day. He was powerful vain about that gab of
his'n, Doctor Kirby was.
The four of us took around about five thousand
bills. The doctor says they is nothing like giving
yourself a chancet. And Saturday morning we
got the balloon filled up so she showed handsome,
tugging away there at her ropes. But we had a
dern mean time with that balloon, too.
The doctor says if we have good luck there may
be as many as three, four hundred people.
But Jerusalem! They was two, three times that
many. By the time the show started I reckon they
was nigh a thousand there. The doctor and the
Blanchet Brothers was tickled. When they quit
coming fast the doctor left the gate and made a
little speech, telling all about the wonderful show,
and the great expense it was to get it together, and
all that.
They was a rope stretched between the crowd
and us. Back of that was the Blanchet Brothers'
wagon and our wagon, and our little tent. I was