Near by the tent door was Stevey Todd's
"Cocoanut Cake, Hot Waffle and Fizz Table." On the platform the
company sat in a half-circle, ready for Flannagan's opening speech to
explain the qualities and talents of each. It was a show to be proud
of, and in point of colour resembling solar spectrums, or peacocks'
tails. Madame Bill had charge of costumes, and her tastes were what
you might call exhilarated. Flannagan began:
"Ladies and gintlemen," he says. "The pleasure I take in
inthroducin' 'The Flannagan an' Imparial Itinerant Exhibition,' to
this intelligent aujunce, has niver been equalled in me mimory.
"I see before me," he says, "a ripresentative array of this grreat
counthry's agricultural pursuits, to say nothin' of thim that fish. I
see before me numerous handsome an' imposin' mathrons, to say nothin'
of foine washed babies. I see before me many a rosy girrl a-chewin'
cocoanut candy that ain't so swate as herself, an' many a boy wid his
pockets full of paynuts an' his head full of divelthries.
"Is it the prisence of such an aujunce which gives me the pleasure
unequalled in me mimory? No!
"Ye see before ye 'The Flannagan an' Imparial Itinerant
Exhibition,'" he says.
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