The Man Who Was Magic (11 page)

“Ah, gentlemen, you should read your Bible more closely,” said the host.

“I do, Daddy! I know,” Peter chimed in, raising his hand.

“Very well, then, supposing you tell us,” The Great Robert said proudly.

Peter reeled off: “Aaron contended against the magicians of Egypt in the court of Pharaoh; Exodus, chapter seven verses ten, eleven, and twelve.

“. . . and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent,” quoted Peter and went on, “. . . now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.”

“Good trick, eh?” said Robert. “Not quite as fancy as yours with the egg, my boy, but a nice little turn at that. Would you like to know how it was done?”

“Why, by magic of course,” replied Adam.

“Aha,” said Robert, “indeed magic, as you say. But how and what kind? There’s an explanation for everything, isn’t there, my friend?”

Only Adam heard Mopsy’s whisper penetrating from under the table, “Look out, Adam!”

Adam did not reply, and so after a moment’s hesitation and a sharp look which he threw at his guest, the Chief Magician continued, “Aaron knew a thing or two and so did the magicians of Pharaoh, or they wouldn’t have had jobs at the court. Well then, the rods actually were real serpents, but mesmerized in such a manner that they became absolutely as stiff as a staff. When they were thrown to the ground and stroked along their backs by the magicians’ fingers, away they wriggled, live as you like. And, of course, Aaron was smarter than the Egyptians and went them one better. He saw to it that he had the biggest serpent, so that it swallowed up the others.”

“Marvelous!” said Ninian. “Very clever. I never would have thought of a thing like that. Although I’m sure that what would happen to me would be that my snake instead of becoming mesmerized would turn and bite me.”

But Adam felt rather disappointed and wondered why Robert and all the others were so insistent upon trying to account for, to explain away the most simple acts of magic. He said, “Why not just change rods into snakes, without all that bother and be done with it?”

Mopsy whispered, “Adam, for heaven’s sake be careful!”

His master smiled, broke off a piece of a pink, iced cake and surreptitiously passed it under the table.

“And don’t attempt to bribe me!” Mopsy hissed. “I’m trying to keep all of us out of trouble.”

It was true that here The Great Robert gave Adam a most odd look, as did both his wife and Peter, who were seen to exchange nudges.

Ninian pretended he had choked on some strawberry tart and coughed violently.

But Robert took up the thread again and the awkward moment passed as he said, “Yes, yes, of course, I see your point. It probably wouldn’t be all that easy with real rods and would take quite a bit of preparation, not to mention ingenuity. A good magician must be an inventor as well as everything else. Like you and Ninian, for instance. Now your little number, Ninian, I’m sure took quite a bit of invention and shows how much cleverer you are than all of us thought. And it takes time, too. Men like Herrmann the Great and Robert-Houdin, after whom I am named, sometimes worked for years in their laboratories and machine shops, until they had perfected the mechanics of a trick to their satisfaction and ready to be represented to the public.”

And here Robert coughed “Ahem!” and continued, “Such as, for instance, Adam your great routine with the egg this morning. I wouldn’t doubt but that you had given a few years to mastering its intricacies. Beautiful! Break the egg into the bowl; scramble it up; unscramble it; back into the shell—Presto! And the egg is as new-laid. You wouldn’t—ah—care to let us in—ha, ha!—on how it was done, would you? Just among the family, you know, it stays in the bosom. I’ve shown you a great many of mine. Well, how about it, my boy?”

Adam replied, “But of course,” and felt something sharp, very like a small tooth, entering into the skin of his ankle.

The Great Robert, his wife and son leaned forward to catch every word. They could hardly believe their luck that what they had been unable to obtain by other methods, this stupid young man was voluntarily about to tell them.

“Just magic,” said Adam, “the ordinary kind.”

All the air went out of the others at the table in an audible sigh, like a leak in a balloon. The Chief Magician was the first to recover. He laughed mirthlessly, “Aha, aha, aha! Magic! The ordinary kind! Very good, my boy, very good, my boy, very good. I see you, too, know how to keep a secret, as every intelligent magician should and I don’t blame you a bit.”

“But I’ve just told . . . Ouch!”

The single tooth in Adam’s ankle had become eight and they meant business.

“Is something wrong?” Mrs. Robert asked.

“No, no,” said Adam, “it’s just my dog after another piece of cake, I expect. Here, you greedy thing!”

“Well, well,” said the Great Robert, oozing charm again, “perhaps after you know us better you’ll have a little more confidence in us. Now Ninian, here, we’ve known practically all our lives, haven’t we, my dear fellow?”

The tall, melancholy magician began to perspire again, for he knew or suspected what was coming.

“Y-yes, th-that’s right, sir.”

“That marvelous new trick of yours with the goldfish bowl. I expect you found a way of doing it with mirrors, combined probably with some novel kind of vanisher.”

“Oh no, there weren’t any mirro . . .” Adam began innocently, but he checked himself and left the sentence unfinished since it was either that, or lose the anklebone Mopsy had in his jaws.

But The Great Robert had heard and was becoming irritated. “Aha, no mirrors, you say? Well then, friend Ninian, perhaps you’d like to tell us how it was done, for you really owe it to us. You’ve not been exactly a star turn and we’ve put up with you in Mageia for a long while. As a matter of fact, several times I’ve saved you from expulsion myself.”

Once more the table fell into silence while those all around cocked their ears and poor Ninian, white as the cloth, looked helplessly from Adam to Robert, to Mrs. Robert, to Peter and back to Adam again.

At that moment there emanated from beneath the table the most extraordinary series of noises, a combination of a wheeze, a cough and someone being strangled.

Everyone jumped. “Great Scott!” cried Robert. “What on earth is that?”

Adam lifted the tablecloth. “Oh dear,” he said. “It’s Mopsy. I’m afraid he’s going to be sick. I shouldn’t have given him cake.”

“Heavens!” cried Mrs. Robert, leaping to her feet. “Not on my best carpet! Do something!”

“Hurry, get him out of here!” shouted the Chief Magician as the choking noises increased. Everyone now was up and bawling instructions.

Adam bent down. “It’s all right,” he said, “it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve got him.” He picked up Mopsy, ran with him to the door and out into the street. He set the dog down in the gutter, where the noises immediately ceased, since of course Mopsy wasn’t sick at all.

On the contrary, he roared with laughter and said, “Saved your bacon that time. How did you like my act?”

“Mopsy!” admonished Adam. “How could you! That was a dreadful thing to do. You scared the wits out of everybody, including me.”

“Diversion,” Mopsy replied. “What was Ninian going to say? That
you
had done his trick for him?”

“Goodness,” said Adam, “I hadn’t thought of that. How clever of you. Thank you!”

“That’s all right,” said the dog. “It was a sticky moment, but I think we’ve managed to break up the party.”

It was true. When Adam returned inside with Mopsy in his arms, The Great Robert asked most solicitously, “Is the poor little fellow all right now?” And Mrs. Robert, pleased that her best carpet had been spared, also gave him a pat.

In the excitement everyone forgot the question that had been put to Ninian and the tall magician took the opportunity to excuse himself.

“Good nights” were said all around and shortly afterwards Adam and Mopsy found themselves alone in their bedroom, preparing for their first night’s rest in Mageia.

But this was not yet to be, for with Mopsy curled up at the foot of the bed and Adam just about to go to sleep, they both were alerted by a curious kind of tap-tapping that came from the vicinity of the open window. Mopsy growled and Adam got up to see what it was.

Silhouetted in the bright moonlight, against the window frame, there hung from a bit of string what looked like a small, cardboard cylinder, or half of a box. Adam fingered it. Whatever it was it came from above and as he looked up he heard Jane whisper, “It’s a private telephone. I made it myself. You put it to your ear to listen and to your mouth to speak.”

Adam did so, and heard her say, “It’s Jane. Can you hear me? Keep the string pulled tight, or else it won’t work.”

“Yes, I can.”

“What did they say about me?”

“That you were tired and had a headache and went to bed early.”

“It isn’t true! I’m locked in my room again. They sent me to bed without any supper.”

“Oh no!” said Adam.

“What is it?” Mopsy asked. “Can I hear, too?”

Adam put the cylinder to Mopsy’s ear. “Mopsy’s listening now,” he said.

“Oh, Mopsy, I’m so miserable! I haven’t had anything to eat and Peter’s pinched me until I’m black and blue.”

“Adam,” Mopsy cried, “this is terrible! They’re starving and torturing her.”

Adam took the instrument again, even though they could hear one another whispering quite clearly without it, but somehow it was more exciting to use it. “Jane,” he cried, “I’m so sorry! What happened?”

“They tried to make me tell them how you did the trick with the egg and I couldn’t. They said I must know, because every magician tells his assistant. Then they got very angry and said I shouldn’t have any supper and Peter pinched me and twisted my arm. Oh please, please, tell me Adam! They’ll be cross again in the morning and I’m scared.”

“Poor Jane, it’s all my fault! But you needn’t be frightened any longer. It’s all right, I’ve told them how it was done.”

“After I tried to stop him, of course,” Mopsy put in. “Luckily they didn’t believe him.”

“Then tell me too, just in case.”

“But you already know,” Adam said. “It was just like the rose, or Fussmer’s teeth. Magic. The only kind I seem to know how to do. Not very clever but . . .”

Adam suddenly felt the cylinder of the string telephone yanked sharply from his fingers as it vanished upwards. Then he heard Jane begin to cry.

“Jane, what is it?” he called. “Don’t go away.”

She sobbed, “You and your old magic!” And then she mimicked his voice, “The simple kind. You won’t help me. They’ll be at me again tomorrow.”

Adam said, “Jane, please! I promise you they won’t.” Then he asked, “Would you like me to do you some supper? I could have something up there for you in a jiffy.”

“No, no! Leave me alone! Go away!” and she slammed her window.

“The poor thing,” said Mopsy, “I told you there was something fishy about that windbag, her father, and that lie about the headache. What are we going to do?”

“Hush,” said Adam. “Go to sleep. I’ll try to think up something.” For a long time after he lay in the darkness and thought he could still hear her weeping above.

XII

T
HE
P
ECULIAR
P
ICNIC

B
ut the following day did not turn out at all the way any of them had anticipated. Instead of further trouble and complications, Jane, Adam and Mopsy found themselves packed off by the Roberts for a picnic lunch in the country. And thus, at noon, Jane carrying the picnic basket and Adam with Mopsy trotting beside him were starting down the hill of the cobbled street, bound for the city’s gate. Yet the relationship between the three was not what it had been before.

Jane walked along silently, her eyes cast down. Adam thought that perhaps she was still angry with him because of what had happened the previous night. He had no idea of the task that had been put upon her, or how heavy her heart lay within her.

Mopsy, too, was more quiet than usual, except that as they set out he had remarked, “I’ll bet there’s something funny about this picnic.”

“Funny ha-ha?” Adam had asked.

“No, funny peculiar.”

A little later he muttered, “Don’t say anything, but I’ve had a sniff at the basket. Pooey!” And to Adam’s query as to what he thought was in it, he replied, “Something quite nasty, like cold lamb and what must be a very old sardine.”

As they rounded a corner near the bottom of the town, they ran into Ninian, almost knocking him over, for the tall magician was loping along the street with his head down, and the usual worried expression on his face.

“Hello, Ninian,” Adam said, “where are you going? We’re off on a picnic. Why don’t you come along?”

“A picnic!” Ninian cried, and for an instant his sad eyes lit up. “I simply adore picnics, and I hardly ever get the chance to go on one.” But then the light faded from his countenance. “But I can’t. I’ve had a note from Malvolio asking me to drop by at some sort of meeting they’re holding at noon. I do hope they won’t be asking me about—well, you know—” and his hands formed themselves into the position of holding an imaginary bird cage.