I start a show of my own—Gypsy Brown plays me a dirty trick—The hunchback in the box—Bank Holiday at Cheriton Fair—I plan to circumvent Gypsy Brown—And succeed only too well—The crowd wrecks Brown’s booth—Pandemonium in the fair ground—The gypsies attack my show—The fate of a peace-maker—My fight with Gypsy Brown—£10 to £1 on my opponent and no takers—A knock-out blow—Gypsy Brown vows revenge—My life in danger—How I outwitted the gypsies—The last of my experiences as a fair-ground showman.

Meanwhile all this time Brown was steadily robbing me. Again I confided in my friend Mr. Wayman, telling him that I had by this time saved enough money to buy a tent (but not a proper showman’s booth) and asking his advice as to starting on my own. He thought it would be a good idea, but again took occasion to warn me against incurring the enmity of Brown, and his many friends and relations.

At this time we were performing at Sheerness on an open space in front of the beach, and having made up my mind to act on Mr. Wayman’s advice and chance it, I went to Messrs. Gasson & Sons of Rye, the big military tent-makers, and bought from them a fairly large second-hand army marquee, that I considered would about answer my purpose, at all events for the time being. Then, after our last show at Sheerness, having quite decided to sever all connection with Brown for the future, I made shift to get my box away from his keeping; but unfortunately he was able to retain possession of my banner, and my other “outside props.”

Our next destination after Sheerness was Cheriton, outside Folkestone, where there was a big volunteer camp. We arrived here on an August Bank Holiday, which, I should explain, is the showman’s day of days. All was bustle and animation. I could not, I reflected, have chosen a more auspicious occasion for my first venture as an independent showman.

Helped by the bluers, and a few others, I soon ran up my marquee, and Mr. Wayman very kindly lent me a lorry for an outside platform. I had previously engaged a big ex-army man named Sam Cliff as doorman, and to take the money, etc. He was a fine-built chap, weighing over fourteen stone, and by his own account a bit of a bruiser. I had also provided myself with another banner, a duplicate of the first one I had made, and which was now in Brown’s possession.

“Let him keep it,” I kept saying to myself. “Much good may it do him! He’ll never dare to use it.”

But to my disgust and disappointment this is precisely what he did do. Our two shows, situated almost directly opposite one another, each flaunted an almost identical banner proclaiming to all and sundry that Carlton Philps would give a performance of the famous box trick that won £500 in the House of Lords.

This was, of course, intolerable, and I promptly went over to Mr. Wayman and lodged a complaint. Whilst I was talking to him a little hunchback chap came over to where we were, and asked: “Are you Mr. Carlton Philps?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s me. What do you want?”

“Well, sir,” he answered, “I hope you won’t be offended, but Mr. Brown has engaged me to do a box trick. He fetched me down from London to do it, and now I find that he is using your banner for my trick.”

“Oh,” I said, affecting an indifference I was far from feeling, “that’s all right. Of course there are box tricks and box tricks. Now what sort of a one is yours, may I ask?”

The hunchback gave me a description of it, from which I gathered that his was a very ordinary show indeed, and far inferior to mine; his box being about four times as big as mine was, and minus the canvas cover. Also his trick was worked by means of a trap-door, whereas mine was independent of any such adjunct. So, after turning the matter over in my mind for a little while, I told him it was all right, and he was to get on with his trick.

Well, by the time the fair ground opened, there were I should think between fifteen and twenty thousand people present. The weather was lovely, the crowd was in excellent spirits, and it looked as if we had a record day in front of us.

Brown was ready before me, and he gave a first show under my banner. “This will never do,” I thought. “I’ve got to queer him right here now, or else he’ll queer me.”

So, after thinking hard for a second or two, I called to Cliff, and told him to come up outside on the lorry with me, and to bring my box, together with the canvas cover and the rope. “Now,” I said, addressing the crowd, “I want some of you gentlemen to step up here on the platform, put me inside this box after you have examined it, lock it and keep the key, and then put on the canvas cover and cord it up as tightly and securely as you can. Then, when you have done all this, I want you to carry the box, with me in it, inside the tent, and I will escape from it inside of ten seconds. Finally I will guarantee that, as regards this my first performance here, everybody shall get their money back which they have paid for admittance.”

“Hurrah!” cried the crowd, and before you could say “Jack Robinson” half a dozen sailors had scrambled up on the lorry, and proceeded to carry out my instructions as to locking me in the box, and roping it up. Afterwards they carried me inside, followed by the rest of the crowd, and I escaped from it, as I had said I would, within the time stipulated.

Then I made them another speech, explaining to them that I was the one and only original Carlton Philps, and showing them my photograph and papers to prove it. “Now,” I concluded, “I promised that you should all have your money back, and so you shall—but on one condition. I want each one of you to take the penny my doorkeeper will give you, and go over to the opposition show and see fair play. I ask you to rope the other man up in the same way as you roped me, using the same precautions. Then see whether he will be able to get out as I have done.”

“Hurrah!” shouted the crowd once more. And off they went, sailors and all, their pennies clutched tight in their hands, making a bee-line for Brown’s booth. Then I began to get frightened. Cliff, too, looked serious. But, as I pointed out to him, it was no good worrying ourselves. What had to be, must be. Our business now was with our own show.

By this time the fair was in full swing. The roundabouts were going merrily, the steam organs were at full blast, and I had just begun to gather another crowd round me when I suddenly noticed the central pole of Brown’s booth began to wobble to and fro in a most alarming manner. I could plainly hear, too, angry shouts, and cries of derision, coming from the interior, and almost immediately the entire canvas edifice collapsed with a crash.

“Good Lord! That’s done it!” cried Cliff. “Now we’re in for it. The gypsies will never forget or forgive us for this day’s work.”

I began to think the same, for I quite realised what had happened. The sailors had roped the hunchback in the box, and he had been unable to get out. In revenge the crowd, led by the sailors, had wrecked the show.

However, I reflected, this was primarily Brown’s concern, not mine, and I went on with my preparations for my own show. My marquee was about half full of people, and more swarming in every minute, when the expected happened. Brown, his huge face crimson with anger, and bellowing like a bull, came charging across from the ruins of his booth, followed by a score or so members of his tribe, all of them obviously bent on mischief.

Nor did they come unarmed. Some carried iron tent pegs, others long cudgels, and one big, brawny ruffian swung aloft a heavy iron-shod oak capstan bar, used in the roundabout business. I also noticed, and this caused me most misgiving, that several had round wooden balls taken from the cocoanut-shy boxes. These are very dangerous missiles indeed in the hand of the gypsies, for they can throw them, owing to long practice, as straight as a rifle-shot. Many a time had I seen men stretched senseless by a well-directed shot from one of them, as narrated in the previous chapter, and I had no wish to repeat the experiment in my own person.

However, there was neither time nor opportunity to do much thinking. Calling to Cliff to follow me, I scrambled on the lorry, and with a loaded revolver in one hand, which was ordinarily used in my show business, and a heavy stake hammer in the other, I awaited the onset of the gypsies. These surged round my lorry, a veritable sea of savage humanity, shouting curses and execrations, and swearing that they would have my life.

Sticking my revolver in my belt, I swung the heavy hammer aloft, and threatened to dash out the brains of the first man who tried to climb up on the lorry. This made them pause. Not that they were not plucky. There was, I doubt not, many a brave lad amongst them. But none was so brave or so foolhardy as to wish to court certain death.

By this time pandemonium reigned in the fair ground. All the shows emptied, the roundabouts stopped, the cocoanut shies were deserted, and everybody, showmen and public alike, came surging round my tent. At this moment Sam Cliff, first throwing away a wooden stake he had armed himself with, very pluckily leapt down amongst the gypsies, and tried to parley with their leader. But hardly had he uttered two words, when Brown, mad with rage, rushed at him and knocked him senseless with a terrific blow in the face.

Poor Cliff was not expecting this. In fact he was purposely holding his hands down by his sides at the time to show that his intentions were peaceful. But Brown seemed to think he had done a very clever and plucky thing in “outing” him for the time being, and elated by his success, he came straight for my lorry, and made as if to climb up on it. I raised my hammer aloft, and in my temper I should most certainly have used it. But the crowd, fearing a tragedy, pulled him back.

Meanwhile Messrs. Hastings and Wayman, the managers, were talking to the other gypsies, and trying to pacify them, pointing out to them that they were wasting the best hours of the best day of the year; that while they were quarrelling, money was being turned away, and that people were even now commencing to leave the fair ground, fearing a riot. “Yes, and as for the others,” put in Mr. Hastings, addressing Brown and me, “they’re mostly climbing on the roundabouts and tents, and damaging my property. Let’s to business, before it is too late.”

By this time I began to see that there was only one way out of it. “I’ll fight Brown now,” I cried, “if the crowd will make a ring, and see to it that I get fair play.”

“We’ll see to that, never fear,” yelled the crowd; and in a few seconds a big ring was formed, and Brown, taking his place in the centre of it, stripped himself to the waist. His huge hairy chest heaved with excitement, and I noted, not without inward misgiving, his powerful biceps, his brawny bull-like neck, and the closely cropped, bullet-like head of the fighter by instinct and profession.

When I came to strip in my turn, a great roar of laughter went up from the multitude, and no wonder. I was lean and lanky, and my skin, by contrast with his, appeared soft as velvet, and in colour and sheen not unlike to old ivory. “The lad’s beat before he begins,” said one man in the forefront of the crowd, and who looked like a professional pugilist; “I’ll lay £10 to £1 on the big ’un,” and he looked round inquiringly. But alas! in all that crowd there were no takers. I don’t blame them.

Directly I stepped into the ring Brown made a rush at me, his great arms whirling aloft like the sails of a windmill. I stopped him with a straight left on the nose, and down he went. He scrambled to his feet, and came for me again, bellowing with rage. This time I caught him in the eye with my right, more by luck than by judgment, and he tripped and fell over a tuft of grass.

Now in a rough-and-tumble fight such as this was the strict rules of the prize ring are, it is well understood, not exactly enforced. You may not kick of course, and you may not hit a man when he is completely down, and that is about all. Everything else almost is considered fair, or at all events legitimate. So when Brown, having partially recovered himself, raised himself on one knee, I considered that my turn had come, and making a dive at him, and stooping down myself, I upper-cut him under the chin, and down he went again flat on his back.

Moreover, greatly to my relief, this time he elected to stay down. He wasn’t knocked out by any means, but he had had enough. The other gypsies picked him up, and took him away. The crowd dispersed. The roundabouts were restarted, the shows reopened, and all the fun of the fair was soon in full swing once more. Only Brown’s one-time beautiful booth remained lying where it had fallen, a tangled heap of rent canvas and broken cordage. Brown himself spent the rest of the day presiding at a cocoanut-shy, and nursing a bad black eye.

Every now and again he would turn and shoot a malevolent look in my direction, nor did it need this to tell me that my trouble with him was only now beginning. All day long, too, the other gypsies kept coming up to my show in order to tell me of what was in store for me later. “Brown,” they said, “swears he’ll kill you to-night, and he’s a man of his word.” “Tell Brown,” I retorted, showing them my revolver loaded in all six chambers with ball cartridge, “that I’ll certainly shoot dead any man I catch prowling round my marquee after the fair closes down.”

This, I may add, was a bit of sheer bluff, designed to throw them off the scent. I used to sleep in my marquee, there was nowhere else to sleep in fact, and I knew full well that I could not keep awake all the night long, and that once asleep it would be easy for one of them to creep under the canvas and brain me with a stake hammer. True, Cliff and I might have taken it in turns to keep awake and on guard, one watching while the other slept; but even this, I reflected, would only be postponing the evil day, or rather night. I knew too well the fierce, vindictive nature of the gypsies, to imagine for one moment that Brown and his tribe were going to forgo their revenge altogether. No! I had another plan worked out in my mind, and soon after it was dark I proceeded to put it into execution, with the help of Mr. Wayman in whom I had confided.

He had slipped off to the station at my request, and had ascertained that a fast train left for London at 10.20 p.m. The fair ground closed at 11 p.m. Shortly before ten o’clock struck a man with a barrow, whom I had engaged beforehand, took his position, silently and without being observed, in a lane at the back of my tent.

Then I started the usual patter on the lorry outside in order to collect an audience. I could see that the gypsies were watching me. Possibly they had some suspicion of my intentions. But anyhow I outwitted them.

We got the crowd inside all right, but these people did not get their money back, nor did they see the show; for, instead of giving it, Cliff and I made some excuse to the audience for a brief delay, as we put it, and quietly slipped away out under the tent at the back, bearing with us my box, which I had already packed with our joint personal belongings. To hoist it on to the barrow was the work of a moment. Then we trundled it off to the station. We had, of course, to leave the marquee behind us, but as Mr. Wayman had promised me to look after it, and sell it for me as soon as he got a fair offer for it, this did not trouble me much.

As luck would have it, the train was on time. And as it steamed out of the station, bearing our two selves with it, I was just in time to wave my hand derisively at Brown and a lot of the other gypsies, who, having found out too late the trick I had served them, came charging pell-mell up the lane, cursing and shouting, with the object of trying to cut off our retreat.

So ended my first, last, and only experience as a fair-ground showman. I never went back to the business again; nor, if the truth be told, had I ever the least desire to do so.