The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney Page A

recognize the existence of the male chimera, let alone search for its mate," said Doctor Lao.
     "What is science, anyway?" asked the country lass.
     "Science?" said the doctor. "Why, science is nothing but classification. Science is just tagging a name to everything."
     The chimera awoke. The mists of sleep glazed his green eyes, and reflections of strange dreams swam and receded in his brain. Raising a hind foot he scratched at his tick-crawling hide and, done with the scratching, sniffed at the claw that had scourged the ticks. Doctor Lao took a rattlesnake from a large canister and tossed it to the chimera. The rattler fell in a heap, arched its head, whirred and buzzed and shifted its coils and defied the monster.
     The chimera regarded the rattler as intently as a scullion maid regards a cockroach she is about to step on. Then he flung his tail high up over his back, as does a scorpion, and leaning forward, still as does a scorpion, struck the viper a smart blow on its head with the metal tip of his tail, also as would a scorpion. The rattler died. The chimera picked it up in his forepaws and, sitting kangaroo-like on his haunches, devoured the snake, nipping off the rattles with his front teeth and nicely spitting them aside. He ate the rattler a bite at a time as a child eats a banana and with every whit as much satisfaction. Done with the meal, the monster groveled before Doctor Lao, snorting smoke rings and begging for more food.
     "No, my pretty thing; one snake a day is all you get in this hot weather," said the aged Chinese.
     "You know," he continued to his audience, "it is very necessary to watch our animals' diet down here in Arizona. I think it is because of the lack of humidity or something. Although it may very well be nothing but the dust. Anyhow, if we overfeed them, they invariably have colic or, what is worse, worms. This chimera, of course, with his peculiar interior incinerating system burns the worms up as fast as they attack him. But take our sphinx, for instance. It is a homeric task to worm a sphinx. Ordinary vermifuges won't do at all. It takes a profoundly powerful purgative in large, incessant doses. The last time I wormed the sphinx it voided some of the strangest-looking worms I ever saw in my life. Just like enormous noodles they were. And now every time I look at noodles I think of those wretched tapeworms, and every time I look at tapeworms I think of noodles. It's very distressing."
     "The noodle is a favorite Chinese dish, too, is it not?" asked the old-like party in the golf pants.
     "I prefer shark fins," said Doctor Lao.
         The widow Mrs. Howard T. Cassan came to the circus in her flimsy brown dress and her low shoes and went direct to the fortuneteller's tent. She paid her mite and sat down to hear of her future. Apollonius warned her she was going to be disappointed.
     "Not if you tell me the truth," said Mrs. Cassan. "I particularly want to know how soon oil is going to be found on that twenty acres of mine in New Mexico."
     "Never," said the seer.
     "Well, then, when shall I be married again?"
     "Never," said the seer.
     "Very well. What sort of man will next come into my life?"
     "There will be no more men in your life," said the seer.
     "Well, what in the world is the use of my living then, if I'm not going to be rich, not going to be married again, not going to know any more men?"
     "I don't know," confessed the prophet. "I only read futures. I don't evaluate them."
     "Well, I paid you. Read my future."
     "Tomorrow will be like today, and day after tomorrow will be like the day before yesterday," said Apollonius. "I see your remaining days each as quiet, tedious collections of hours. You will not travel anywhere. You will think no new thoughts. You will experience no new passions. Older you will become but not wiser. Stiffer but