A big crowd wuz gathered round him of human bein's in all strange
costumes, and camels and their drivers, and dromedaries, and donkeys,
and everything else under the sun. But this man stood calm under the
sights and ear-piercin' yells and jabbers.
And in some way, I d'no how, nor Josiah don't, he wuz a-holdin' another
Japan or Turkey--anyway, one of them foreign men--suspended right up in
the air.
I see it, and Josiah see it, and Bizerses folks. Eight eyes from
Jonesville looked at it, to say nothin' of the assembled crowd.
He wuzn't restin' on nothin' at all, so fur as we could see. What
material wrought out of the Occult World wuz piled up under him I d'no.
There might have been a sofa and two cushions wrought out of another
fabric different from what we know anything about, and that don't make
any show aginst the summer sky.
And then, agin, it might be that Josiah wuz right.
He sez, "It's easy enough to do that. He casts a mist before our eyes,
and we have to see jest what he wanted us to."
"Wall," sez I, "if I had to do one of 'em to entertain the Missionary
Society at Jonesville, I d'no but I had jest as soon hist Submit
Tewksbury up in the air, and suspend her there in our parlor, as to cast
mists before the eyes of the Jonesvillians and make 'em see her there
when she wuz a-settin' on the sofa. Either one on 'em is queer--queer as
a dog."
"Wall," sez he, "you don't want to go into any sech a job. You'll kill
Submit, anyway, experimentin' on her."
And I sez, "You needn't worry; I hain't a-goin' to try to branch out
into no sech doin's." Sez I, "I wuz usin' Submit as a metafor."
Wall, the Fakir after a while asked the queer-lookin' crowd gathered
round him for money to try more experiments with.
And wantin' to branch out and outdo Bizer, and make himself a hero,
Josiah planked out a five-dollar bill.
And then the man asked Josiah to look in his hat, and there inside the
band he found the money, or so it seemed.
And then he told me to look in my pocket, and there wuz five silver
dollars to all appearance.
I felt real well about it, and wuz about to put 'em into my portmoney,
thinkin' that they wuz my lawful prey, seein' they had fell onto me
through my pardner's weakness, when lo and behold! they wuzn't there.
I felt real stunted, and kinder sot back.
"Slight of hand," sez Josiah to me and Bizer. "Don't be afraid, I'll
make it all right." And he reached out his hand to git the money back.
The man handed the money back, or so we spozed, and vanished in the
crowd.
And Josiah, when he went to look in his hand, found some pink and white
paper. He hollered round and acted for quite a spell, but the man wuz
gone for good, and Josiah's money with him. Wall, Josiah wuz almost
broken-hearted over the loss of his money; he felt awful browbeat and
smut, and acted so.
And then it wuz Bizer's time to show off and act. Nothin' to do but
what Selinda had got to ride a camel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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