by Paul Gallico
“I’m afraid I haven’t anything at all like that,” Adam confessed.
The Town Clerk was now looking utterly incredulous. “And you claim to be a magician? Any confederates?”
“Confederates? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“My goodness,” Fussmer exclaimed testily. “What do you know? Helpers, of course, stooges incognito in the audience or in the wings, who assist you with escapes. Or when you ask for committees to come up onto the stage, see to it that the smart alecks don’t interfere with your gimmicks.”
“Of course not,” said Adam. “That would be cheating.”
The Town Clerk gave a high-pitched whinny through his nose. “Ha-ha-ha! Cheating! And what do you think magic is, my friend? It’s all cheating of one sort or another, isn’t it?”
“Well, mine isn’t,” Adam replied. “At least, I don’t think so. It’s honest magic.”
Fussmer laughed and said, “That’ll be the day! Ha-ha! I’ll write that down.” Thereafter he picked up the sheet, scanned it and sneered, “Well, my fine fellow, do you know what all this adds up to? It means out!” and he spelled it, “o-u-t: out!”
“Oh, please!” cried Jane and moved a little closer to Adam.
Mopsy said nothing at that moment. He just growled. But filtered through all the hair it didn’t sound like very much.
“Please, nothing!” said Fussmer the Fabulous. “You actually haven’t satisfied a single one of our requirements. You haven’t got a name, or an age; you lied about where you came from; your assistant is too young; you don’t know any of the routines I’ve mentioned; you have no props, or equipment; no clothes—you look like a scarecrow to begin with—and, in fact, I’d say that you were nothing but a faker.”
“That’s done it,” said Mopsy. “Now I am going to have a piece out of him.”
Adam, however, was able to get his foot in front of him just in time, as he ordered, “Wait!”
“But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, just to prove my judgment,” continued Fussmer, sitting up, preening himself a little, arranging his cuffs and giving the toupee on his head a little pat. “If you can show me one, single trick that a two-year-old baby couldn’t guess, right here and now, I’ll stamp this paper ‘passed’ and send you along into the trials. Now, what do you think of that for generosity?”
“That’s most kind of you,” said Adam. “May I try, then? I’m afraid it won’t be anything as extraordinary as the things your honor did before.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” replied Fussmer impatiently, “get on with it then, because I must be going upstairs to the judging.
“Now, Jane,” said Adam, “perhaps at the same time we shall be able to show Mr. Fussmer what a splendid assistant you can be.” He was some three yards away from the Town Clerk’s desk as he spoke, with the little girl by his side. “Suppose you take my cap and go and stand over there, by those chairs. That’s fine. Now, open the cap and hold it upside down, so it may receive that which is about to arrive. Excellent, Jane! Ready now, sir?”
And with that Adam shouted, “Hi!” made a swift lightning-like pass through the air in which he caught a handful of nothing and threw it in the direction of his assistant, crying, “Catch, Jane!” and his open hand was empty.
He had not moved an inch closer to the Town Clerk, who now, however, shot up from his chair as though he had sat upon a tack, covered his mouth with one hand and mumbled, “Mfff! Mfff! Fy feef!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Adam.
“Fy feef—fif fe fack fy feef!”
Mopsy leaped about and waved his silk flag of a tail frantically. “Brilliant!” he yelped. “Don’t fif him fack his feef! If ferves him right!”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Adam.
“Argh! Oop! Foof!” moaned Fussmer and pointed to his mouth.
“Oh, you mean those?” said Adam. “Perhaps the young lady can help you. Jane, look into the cap you’re holding.”
Jane did so and let forth a squeal of delight. For there, in the bottom of the folds, was a pair of very white teeth, uppers and lowers. “Here they are!” she shouted. “Higgledy-piggledy-parabaloo!”
Fussmer was now not only toothless, but purple with rage and could only shout, “Fy feef, fy feef!”
“Give the gentleman back his teeth, Jane,” Adam commanded.
Jane came forward and gracefully proffered the cap to the Town Clerk, who reached into it furiously, grabbed the dentures and crammed them into his mouth.
“Oooooh!” he mewed. “How did you do it? I didn’t see it happen.”
“Magic. Would you care for another trick?” Adam suggested.
“I don’t think that hair’s real, either,” put in Mopsy. “Go on. Have a go.”
“Shsh!” whispered Adam. “I think this one did it.”
For while the fat Clerk was in an absolute fury now, he was also very much upset and quite certain that he did not care to risk a further experiment. Although members of the Council suspected that his hair was a wig, he had hoped that the false teeth were a secret from everyone. If the story of what had just happened got out, it would make him a laughing stock. Somehow he must manage to save face.
“Ha!” he cried, even though Adam had not been within yards of being able to touch him. “Now I know what your line is. You’re one of those newfangled, pick-your-pocket fellows that have come along in the business, inviting members of the audience up onto the stage and stealing watches, wallets, papers, purses and bits of jewelry from them.” Then, glaring at Adam, he snarled, “Well, a promise is a promise and I’m a fair man.” He sighed and stamped the form. “There! I’ve let you into the trials. I suppose if the dog is part of your act, I’ll have to allow him in too. But I warn you, don’t expect to pass. You see—heh-heh-heh—I shall be joining the Judges!”
At that moment the Town Hall clock struck ten. Fussmer arose. “Entries closed,” he said. “You’re the last one. Come along, then,” and donning his top hat, he motioned Adam and Jane to follow him out of his office and up the broad staircase that led to the first floor.
VI
NINIAN THE NONPAREIL
The last stage of the trials was about to begin when Adam, Jane and Mopsy entered the Council Room and quickly sat down on two empty chairs nearest the door. Some thirty other magicians of various ages, with their paraphernalia and pretty assistants, were seated nervously around three sides, competing for the eight places in the final selection the following night.
At the far end of the chamber, at a great, long table, sat the Judges. Here too, were chairs for a number of guests, important magicians and their wives.
The Council Room itself was a most awful place in which to perform—one of those huge, bare, two-storied lofts you find in every Town Hall, featuring tall windows that let in too much daylight—which showed up the whitewashed walls and the depressing portraits of past Presidents of another day peering out of dark backgrounds.
The floor was of stone and uncarpeted, so that footsteps made a hollow sound and voices awakened an unpleasant echo, a further disturbance to a smooth act.
This was done on purpose. If in this glaring, inhospitable atmosphere without the assistance of sets, backdrops, scenery, footlights, spotlights, dimmers, drum rolls or atmospheric music the candidates could hold the interest of the Judges and execute their tricks perfectly, they would be very good indeed.
One of the Judges was seated at the center of the table, on a dais slightly higher than the members of the Council of Thirteen, ranged on either side of him. This, since he was already a huge man, caused him to tower over his companions and the gold-rimmed eyeglasses attached to a black ribbon, perched on his nose, gave him an air of great judicial dignity.
“That’s my daddy, The Great Robert,” Jane whispered to Adam, “and my brother Peter’s sitting beside him.”
“Is he one of the Judges, too?” Adam asked.
“Oh no,” said Jane. “Not yet. But Daddy always takes him along. Does
n’t he look silly!”
Peter, who was the image of his father, was quite aware of the importance of being the son of the Chief Magician and was trying to imitate his expression of benign condescension and not making a very good job of it.
“Who are the others?” Adam asked.
Jane began to count off on her fingers and whispered, “Well, first the Chinesey one is Wang Fu. He’s not really Chinese. He only pretends. But he’s funny, he makes me laugh. Then, the next one is called Dante the Dazzling. He does marvelous tricks with cigarettes. He’s nice. The little one with the funny red hat on his head, that’s Abdul Hamid. He’s Egyptian, and gives me the shivers. He does tricks with live snakes. And then Rajah Punjab; he’s not a real Indian, either.”
“Who’s the little fellow with his silk hat on one side of his head and something of a squint?” Adam had noticed him immediately they had come in, from his cockiness and his face which seemed to be set in a permanent sneer. Instead of the spikily waxed mustache, his was the wretched little toothbrush kind.
“I’ve had my eye on him, too,” muttered Mopsy.
“Shsh!” warned Jane. “That’s Malvolio the Mighty. He hates Daddy and Daddy doesn’t like him, either. And the tall one with the funny eyebrows, sitting beside him, who looks like a devil, calls himself Mephisto the Mysterious. He’s almost as bad. He’s always backing up Malvolio against Daddy.”
“And the very old one, at the end?” said Adam. “He looks a pet.”
“Oh, he is,” agreed Jane. “That’s Professor Alexander. He’s our oldest magician and knows more about everything than anyone. He always brings me a present when he comes to see us. And that’s Zerbo the Matchless sitting by him. I can’t stand him. He always teases me.”
And so Jane pointed out and commented upon the rest of the Council: Frascati the Fantastic who did illusions with ghosts and skeletons that gave her bad dreams, but who was very nice outside; Boldini the Brilliant, the card expert, proud of his fine, long hands; Saladin the Stupendous, whose speciality was coins and who was known to be the greatest inventor of magical tricks and apparatus in Mageia. And, of course, the last arrival to make up the thirteenth was fat Fussmer the Fabulous.
This was indeed a formidable group, each an expert in his own field of the various types of stage magic. They had seen practically all that there was to see, knew what to look for and could be counted upon to detect the slightest slip-up in any kind of mechanical gadget used to aid a trick, or faltering, or a suspicious movement on the part of a performer. Individually and collectively they would be very difficult to fool.
The Town Clerk had taken over a sheaf of forms listing the names and now called out, “First candidate, Flippo the Flabbergasting.”
A heavy-set magician and his assistant arose uneasily and marched to the center of the floor, where they set up a tremendous array of paraphernalia of stands, tables, bowls, pails, rings, tubes, boxes and small cabinets and soon became involved in a trick so complicated that the Judges began to yawn and lose interest.
The magician Jane had pointed out as Malvolio the Mighty leaned over and whispered to Mephisto, loud enough to be heard by everyone, “He’d better change his name from Flippo to Floppo,” which of course, made the poor magician out in the middle of the floor more nervous and butterfingered than ever.
“That’s a rotten trick he’s doing,” added Mopsy.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I know mine won’t work either. I wish I’d thought to try something else.”
These words from his neighbor on the left caused Adam to turn to see who had spoken.
Although the man was seated, it was plain that when he arose, he would be very tall. And he seemed to be a living picture of discouragement and despondency.
His face was long and thin. His hair parted in the center, hung limply on either side of his head and his black mustaches drooped likewise. His dark eyes were kindly but sad and worried, and his whole expression was a mixture of melancholy, anxiety and hopelessness.
This air was reflected as well in his clothes. His full dress suit which certainly had seen better times, was rusty black and appeared to be at least two sizes too large for him. The collar stood away from his neck and the sleeves came down almost to his fingertips.
He was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his elbows to his sides and Adam, looking more closely, saw that he was holding a small bird cage between the palms of his hands.
Inside the cage, swinging on a little perch, sat an orange-colored canary which now cocked its head and regarding Adam with a not particularly friendly eye, opened his beak and uttered a disheartened, “Cheep.”
“Albert hates this trick,” the magician whispered, noting Adam’s interest. “Not that I blame him.”
“Oh,” said Adam, likewise quietly, “what is it you do?”
“I make him disappear. Or at least I try to.”
“How clever of you. From inside the cage, right in front of our eyes?”
The candidate’s unhappy face lit up for a moment, “That’s not all,” he said. “I make the cage disappear too. Presto! Change-o! Gone! That is, if it works.”
“But why shouldn’t it?” Adam asked.
“Because there’s so very much that can go wrong, you see,” the magician explained softly. “It isn’t really a cage at all, it’s just some wire and a bit of ribbon put together to look like one. I made it myself from instructions in a book. There’s a string tied to it coming out of my right sleeve. It runs up my arm, around my back and down my other sleeve, the left one, where it’s tied to my wrist. You can’t see it, can you?” he concluded anxiously.
“I can,” said Mopsy.
“Hush, Mopsy! That’s because you’re on the floor,” said Adam. “You can see a lot of things other people can’t.” He looked carefully and was glad to be able to say honestly that nothing of the string showed.
“That’s very good to know,” said the magician. “Well, when the time comes, I stand up and say my patter which ends with, ‘Presto! Change-o!’ Then I give a jerk with my left hand which pulls the string. The cage collapses and disappears up my right sleeve. If you look closely you can see that the wires are just loosely looped together and the whole thing goes quite flat.”
“And this they call magic?” said Mopsy.
Adam ignored the remark and said, “What about Albert? Does he go flat too? What happens to him?”
“Not exactly. He goes up my sleeve as well. That’s why he hates this trick so.”
“But isn’t that cruel?” Adam asked.
“Not really,” replied the magician. “It’s the only work he is ever called upon to do and besides, he doesn’t stay there long. Right after the applause—that is, if there is any—I rush backstage out of sight, take off my coat—which is why I wear rather a large one, so that he won’t suffocate—dig him out of my sleeve, give him some poppy seed he regards as a special treat and in a few minutes he’s back in his real cage, as right as rain.”
“I call that amazing. You must be wonderful. What’s your name?”
“Ninian,” replied his neighbor. “Ninian the Nonpareil. What’s yours?”
“Adam. And this is my assistant Jane and my talking dog Mopsy.”
“Delighted,” said Ninian. “So sorry I can’t shake hands or pat the little fellow, but as you can see . . .” and he waggled his elbows to indicate his situation once more.
“What does ‘Nonpareil’ mean, Mr. Ninian?” Jane asked.
The sad-looking magician reflected and then replied, “I’m not sure I quite know, myself. But it sounds good, doesn’t it? Ninian the Nonpareil. I think, actually, it means something like I’m unique; there’s no one quite like me. And do you know, it’s probably a good thing, because I’m afraid I’m the world’s worst magician. I try so very, very hard but everything I do seems to go wrong.”
“Oh, poor Mr. Ninian,” Jane whispered sympathetically. “I don’t believe that.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Ninian s
aid. “But what a charming young lady. How fortunate you are, Mr. Adam, to have such a delightful helper. Now, I haven’t even got an assistant.”
“But I thought you had to have one. That it was in the rules?” Adam said.
“Special dispensation,” replied Ninian gloomily. “Nobody will have me. The girls don’t want to be made fools of. I’m really quite awful.”
“Well, I don’t see what can happen to you this time,” Adam declared. For as he studied the thing Ninian held between his hands, he saw that though from a distance it looked like a real birdcage, actually it was as the magician had described.
“You’d be surprised,” said Ninian. “The last cage collapsed, but didn’t disappear. Albert raised what-for. He was furious. The Magicians’ Animals Protective Association accused me of needless cruelty. I had to pay a fine and was flunked as well. I tried it again and just pulled the top of the cage off. Albert got out. It took us half an hour to catch him. He left a visiting card on one of the honored guests. I was fined again.” Then he added mournfully, “This is my last chance.”
“Can’t you apply again?” Adam asked.
“No,” Ninian replied and Jane and Adam saw the beginning of tears gathering in the corners of his sad eyes. “If you fail three times in the eliminations, that’s it. And they publish it and everybody knows. I shall never be able to put G.M.M., which stands for ‘Guild of Master Magicians,’ after my name. I suppose it was stupid of me to insist upon trying the third time.”
“It certainly looks like it,” said Mopsy.
“Mopsy, that’s naughty!” Adam scolded. “Can’t you see the poor man is in trouble?” Then addressing himself to Ninian, he asked, “Would you like us to help you?”
Ninian stared at them in surprise. “Help me?” he queried. “Why, I’ll be out there on the floor all by myself. What could you do?”
“What can he do?” echoed Mopsy. “Better ask what can’t he do, when he starts making magic.”