One Born Every Minute
The interior of the tent was dim and scented in flowers, predominantly rose, with a hint of carnation, and blended with a citrus fragrance, lemon--infused with a dash of orange.
The shelves of the glass-shuttered curio cabinets were laden with cork-stoppered bottles and ampoules, some as small as a thimble, others as wide as a jelly jar. The collection of assorted vials grouped together by the color of their contents and arranged in straight rows by their size.
A man, with a perfect circle for a face and eyes that gleamed like polished silver spoons, stepped out of the shadows and into the light. His tailcoat and top hat wardrobe was fashioned out of the same clover shade as the stripes painted on the tent’s biscuit-brown canvas. His glittered emerald tie and shamrock stud tie tack added a touch of theatrical whimsy that matched the gregarious, if somewhat rehearsed, tone of his voice.
“Welcome, Madam. Come in. Don’t be bashful. Life’s too short to be shy. Browse my elixirs. Sample my perfumes. Try my tonics before you buy. There are no small imaginations beyond my threshold. Believe mammoth, that’s my motto. From the fragmental to the titanic, I am a professional purveyor of cures for all ailments and fulfiller of impossible dreams.”
The man lifted his hat from his head and swept it low across his potbelly. “Professor Silas G. Cullpepper, at your humble service.”
“You’re a potion salesman?”
“Potions. Liniments. Lamp oils. Smelling salts. Pastes.”
“Oh, dear. I was looking for the pie eating contest, must have gotten lost and wandered into your tent by mistake.”
Cullpepper’s eye for detail was as sharp as his tongue. Barren ring finger on the left hand. Sprout of gray hair at the temples. His lost visitor’s ample frame.
“Mistake! Why I'll have you know, Madam, there is no such thing as a mistake. No random encounters in my world. In my personal experience the feet only go where they wish to be led.”
Quick as a gunfighter’s draw he hooked his arm around the woman and steered her deeper into the tent's darkness.
"Sir,” the woman protested, “you are much too familiar.”
“Nonsense, Madam. My introduction was properly made, and there can be no impropriety in the touch of a gentleman, one old enough to be a grandfather, great grandfather even, on such an...almost girlish waist.”
One after another he plucked vials from the cabinet shelves and dangled them in front of her eyes before he whisked them back into their proper place.
“Is it the purple swoon of passion that strikes your fancy? A nip of red to put that ohhhhh so youthful bloom back upon your cheeks?"
He pressed a bottle filled with pink and white swirled liquid into the palm of her gloved hand and gently curled her fingers over the bottle.
The brush of his hand beside her ear produced a penny, pinched between his thumb and his index finger. “Perhaps, a touch of svelte to take the full out of figure. Guaranteed, I assure you, to turn the flat of a coin onto its thinner, more attractive, side.”
The corner of the woman’s lips descended into a frown. “You snake oil salesmen are all alike. You ought to be ashamed. Do you take me for a fool, with your cheap parlor trick and slick words?”
Cullpepper wobbled his knees and clutched his hands over his heart. “Madame, you wound me. You think me a shyster who tells falsies, a man that would sell a fine specimen of decent, upstanding society balderdash in a bottle or some two-cent charm on an easily broken chain. I’ll have you know I am a self-certified doctor of mixology. And, a former apothecary by trade.”
The woman rolled her eyes and set the vial of svelte on a shelf. “Self-certified. Hmph. Good day, Sir.”
Cullpepper parted the soft folds of the tent flaps and watched the woman go.
Barnum’s assessment had been partially right. Suckers were born every minute, but damn if a fellow didn’t have to sluice through a hundred to work a little magic on a gullible two or three.
No matter. The place often varied, but the numbers game remained the same. Today, Rapscallion, Texas. Next week, somewhere in Nowhere, Louisiana. The Cajuns loved their Bayou voodoo. There'd be a few samplers searching for a quick fix beneath the canvas of his portable potion and perfumery.