Seymour, his blond face flushed by the heat and his exertions to the hue of his pink-and-white blazer, ostentatiously wrought another knot, and down the juggler went on the floor, encased in the unbroken netting; the cloth was thrown over the man and the basket, and Seymour turned anew to the audience and took up the thread of his discourse. It came as trippingly off his tongue as before, and in the dusky gray-purple haze, the seeming medium in which the audience sat, fair, smiling faces, full of expectation and attention, looked forth their approval, and now and again broke into laughter. When, having concluded by announcing that he intended to convey the discomfited juggler off the stage, he found naught under the cloth but the empty net without a mesh awry, the man having escaped, his rage was a trifle more pronounced than before. With a wild gesture he tossed the net out to the spectators to bid them observe how the villain had outwitted him, and then sprang into the basket and stamped tumultuously all around in the interior, evidently covering every square inch of its surface, while the detective’s keen eyes watched with an eager intensity, as if the only thought in his mind concerned the miracle of the juggler’s withdrawal. Out Seymour plunged finally, and with dogged resolution he put the lid on and began to cord up the basket as if for departure. “Save the little you’ve got left,” whinnied out a squirrel-toothed mouth from the front bench, almost too broadly a-grin for articulation. “Get a move on ye,--get a move!” shouted another of the callow youngsters, reveling in the fictitious plight of the discomfited manager as if it were real. He seemed to resent it. He looked frowningly over the footlights at the front row, as it hugged itself and squirmed on the bench and cackled in ecstasy. “I wish I had him here!” he exclaimed gruffly. “I’d settle him--with this--and this--and this!” Each word was emphasized with the successive thrusts of the sharp blade of the bowie-knife through the wickerwork.