He had come upon the stage with nothing in his hands, and except for the piano it was empty, certainly empty of all the paraphernalia of legerdemain. Then, suddenly he held in his hand a small brass bowl. He made a sign to some one in the back of the room, who had evidently been detailed to help him, and a servant gave him a carafe of ice water. This he set down beside the bowl. Then he offered the bowl to the spectators for examination. Ruth noticed that he was so close to them that it was not even necessary to step down from the low stage. Two or three men who “Never saw a trick yet I couldn’t see through” examined the bowl with sceptical eyes and pronounced it quite ordinary. Then George poured ice water from the carafe into the bowl and again offered it for inspection. Several people touched it with their hands and pronounced the water with which it was quite filled to be ice cold. Then George set the bowl down before him and covered it with a small silk handkerchief. He waved his hands over it three times, removed the handkerchief, and they saw steam rising from the ice water. Again George offered the bowl for inspection. Terry dipped his fingers into the water and as quickly removed them with an exclamation of pain. The water was almost too hot to touch. Then from nowhere appeared the little mound of sand and watering pot indispensable to any self-respecting Indian fakir. Several people whispered, “The mango tree—that’s an old one.” Throughout George had not spoken one word. He seemed to be unconscious of his audience except when he asked them to examine something. To Ruth there seemed in his studied leisure a conscious effort to disguise haste. He bent now over the sand, pouring water on it and pressing it up into a little hillock of mud; then he covered it with a cloth, beneath which his hands were still busy. Then he moved away and seemed to be muttering charms. When he returned and removed the cloth there was the little mango sprout with its two leathery leaves. Again the plant was covered, next time to appear several inches tall with more leaves, and so on until it had reached a height of more than a foot. It was all very wonderful, as was also the fountain of water that sprang from the tip of his index finger, until he seemed to chide it, whereupon it disappeared from his hand and was seen spouting from the top of the piano. Dissatisfied, he lit a candle and, calling to the water, made it spring from the candle flame itself. Then he called again, spread out his arms, and the stream, leaving the still lighted candle, separated and sprang from his five outspread fingertips. In an ordinary music hall the people who watched would doubtless have conceded that it was clever, but here in an ordinary drawing-room in an ordinary country house in the Berkshires on Christmas Eve, the performance became something more than legerdemain. It bordered on the supernatural and they sat silent and fascinated.