THE CRIME

There was Coolidge gone off to fill the great open spaces with his silence. And my little roommate began to make noises like this, "Bang, Bang", as he thought of Dead Eye Dick, Nervous Nelly and all of the old gun toting sons of guns out where our gay President is to don his overalls for the summer publicity.

So before one could say jack rabbit or Lindbergh or drink a malted milk, we had taken the subway for a ride and were at the Wild West Show. "Do you suppose--do you suppose they'll have, real Indians?" My roommate is one of those cynical fellows. I said that there were more live Indians to be had since the others were dead or something equally significant. Which should have closed his mouth to further gaucherie. But...

"Woof, Woof", went a creature cloistered in a sample of a main tent. I gave Oscar the necessary ten cents and up he went to do his daily good turn to the local faksters. His crest fallen features quivered with chagrin as he rejoined the family group before the door of the side show. "It was no Indian", he cursed, "It was only his wife."

"Come, come, my lad", I added. And we went to the side show. The fat lady immediately fascinated Oscar. "How does she get that way?", he punned. At which dirty crack I felled him with a right to the liver and three or four agreeable remarks. So he asked her. Her life story will appear under his name in the first interesting edition of the Alumni Bulletin. He has her picture done by some landscape artist of the gay seventies.

The three legged man had a right to Oscar's interest. For haven't you all wanted to see a professional three legged race? What was our dismay to find that this fellow had never been in one. It seems his mother was a beared lady. And she did whatever running there was to be done. Anyway he took a great fancy to my roommate and gave him a message to deliver to the American Association of Boot and Shoe Manufacturers at their next meeting.

The tattooed lady revealed unexplored fields of exterior design to Oscar who wailed at my refusal to allow him to fresce his front with the Spirit of St. Louis and an angel. I might also tell about the Haiwaians. But that is not for publication.

Cries from the main tent told us to hurry for choice seats or even those splinters called bleachers. And soon we were watching cowgirls and cowboys and their cows doing such stunts as my merry Oscar had not seen before since he was in Sweden with the Marines during the battle of Jungfrau.

But the Indians were really what he liked. Feathers poised they darted about reckless in their atacks upon stage coach and prairie schooner, dauntless in their desire to make everything a success including their blank cartridges. Then what do you think happened? You just could never guess.

Oscar fund Tom Mix. As he said later when grilled by the state's attorney, "If it isn't Tom Mix, who is it?" For sure enough there was either Will Rogers or Tom Mix riding the famous Tony and swinging the famous rope and telling fast ones while he shot buffaloes from nickles thrown by an Indian hanging in mid-air by his toes from the shoulders of a bandit. "Whee", quoth my roommate, "Whee". So then and there I decided to take him to commencement.