Jeff quickly learned all the carnie terms: The "gaff" was a term for fixing the games so that the marks could not win. The men who stood in front of a sideshow making their spiel were called "barkers" by outsiders, but the carnie people called them "talkers." The talker got 10 percent of the take for building the tip--- the "tip" being a crowd. "Slum" was the prize given away. The "postman" was a cop who had to be paid off.
Jeff became an expert at the "blow-off." When customers paid to see a sideshow exhibition, Jeff would make his spiel: "Ladies and gentlemen: Everything that's pictured, painted, and advertised outside, you will see within the walls of this tent for the price of your general admission. However, immediately after the young lady in the electric chair gets finished being tortured, her poor body racked by fifty thousand watts of electricity, we have an extra added attraction that has absolutely nothing to do with the show and is not advertised outside. Behind this enclosure you are going to see something so truly remarkable, so chilling and hair-raising, that we dare not portray it outside, because it might come under the eyes of innocent children or susceptible women."
And after the suckers had paid an extra dollar, Jeff would usher them inside to see a girl with no middle, or a two-headed baby, and of course it was all done with mirrors.
One of the most profitable carnival games was the "mouse running." A live mouse was put in the center of a table and a bowl was placed over it. The rim of the table had ten holes around its perimeter into any one of which the mouse could run when the bowl was lifted. Each patron bet on a numbered hole. Whoever selected the hole into which the mouse would run won the prize.
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