Freddy the Magician

by Walter R. Brooks

  The sheriff and Mr. Groper stared at Freddy in puzzlement. Why, they wondered, was he throwing away a chance to have the magician locked up? Zingo was puzzled too. But he had the good sense to go back to his chair.

  The sheriff turned to Mr. Groper. “Well, Ollie,” he said, “I don’t see as there is anything for me to do here. Unless,” he said to Zingo, “you want to make charges against this wild Indian for illegally and with malice aforethought settin’ traps, gins, slings or snares with the intent of catchin’ and pinchin’ one or more digits, and thus causin’ you pain, alarm and vexation of spirit? How’s that, Ollie?” he said, grinning at the hotelkeeper.

  But Mr. Groper was too disappointed at not being able to have Zingo arrested to applaud the sheriff’s elegant language. He merely shrugged and lumbered off towards the office.

  The magician didn’t bother to reply either. He lit a cigar and called for another cup of coffee.

  When the sheriff had gone, Freddy slipped up to his room.

  “Hi, Big Chief Pretzel Tail,” said Jinx. “Take off that war bonnet: we know you. Say, there’s been a visitor to your wigwam while you were out.”

  “I know it,” said Freddy. “How’d he get in?”

  “With a key. We heard him try two or three, and then he got one that unlocked the door. Minx and I hid in the closet. I don’t think he came in to get his cape, because he acted surprised when he saw it. And he looked in all the bureau drawers.”

  “He must suspect who I am,” said Freddy. “If he thought I was just Mr. Groper’s nephew, he wouldn’t snoop in here, and if he knew who I was, I don’t think he would either. He’s looking for evidence.”

  “Well, he didn’t get much,” said Jinx. “We thought we’d better get rid of him, so we sneezed a couple of times and rattled things around in the closet, and I guess he thought the chambermaid was in there, because he sneaked right out.”

  “He got enough,” Freddy said; “he got the cape. And he’s no fool; he can put two and two together. If anybody’s the fool, it’s me. I thought by coming here I’d be able to figure out some way of getting him to leave the hotel. But I haven’t accomplished anything, and …”

  “Oh, you’re just breaking my heart!” Jinx interrupted sarcastically. “If we hadn’t come to the hotel we wouldn’t have known that Zingo was going to rob our bank, and he’d have cleaned the place out. We’re doing all right. Come on, chief, give ’em the old war whoop. Sharpen up your tomahawk. We’ll get Zingo’s scalp yet.”

  “Oh, I’m not giving up,” said Freddy, but he didn’t say it with much conviction. If Zingo knew who he was, he might as well hang up the Indian suit in the closet and go home. For if he didn’t—well, it would be just too bad.

  As a matter of fact, it was too bad—and no later than that afternoon.

  Chapter 14

  So far the watch that the mice and the spiders had been keeping on the magician hadn’t turned up anything of value. Of course they had seen and described to Freddy a good many of the gadgets that Zingo used in doing his tricks, and this information was to be valuable later on. They had found about a hundred dollars tucked away in a shoe in a suitcase, but although Freddy was sure this was what was left of the hundred and thirty that Zingo had cheated him out of at the magic show, he wouldn’t let them take it. “I’m going to get it back,” he said, “but I’m not going to steal it.”

  One thing they found puzzled them a good deal. It was a little mirror about the size of a ten-cent piece set in a ring. Usually Zingo wore it on his little finger, but once or twice he had left it on the bureau, and there the mice had seen it and wondered about it.

  “He’s an awful vain man,” said Quik. “He’s always twisting that little moustache of his. Maybe he wears it so he can admire himself in it.”

  “He’s not that kind of vain,” said Cousin Augustus. “He’s the kind that doesn’t think he ever needs to look in the glass. He thinks he always looks handsome.”

  “He always wears it with the mirror part turned in, I notice,” said Eek.

  “I think,” said Freddy when they told him about it, “that it’s something he uses in his tricks. Skip it; we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

  Freddy stayed in all that morning worrying. Usually there’s nothing very constructive about worrying, but Freddy was a good journalist, and he had learned that what can’t be helped can sometimes be turned into copy, and that even your troubles can sometimes be made to pay. He wrote a poem about worrying for the next issue of the Bean Home News.

  When life’s at its darkest and everything’s black,

  I don’t want my friends to come patting my back.

  I scorn consolation, can’t they let me alone?

  I just want to snivel, sob, bellow and groan.

  There’s a pleasure in weeping, a joy in despair;

  There’s a great satisfaction in tearing my hair.

  Don’t tell me I’m handsome: I want to be plain;

  I don’t want the sunshine; I want it to rain.

  Why can’t my friends see, when I’m feeling so low,

  That the lower I get, then the higher I’ll go

  Later on. For before you can rise, you must drop;

  If you haven’t hit bottom, you can’t reach the top.

  For the way to be helpful to those who are down

  Is not to be merry and act like a clown,

  But to look on the dark side, and groan, and predict

  That ruin impends, and they’re finally licked.

  So when I feel awful, just point out my faults,

  Don’t try to console me and ask me to waltz.

  Just tell me I’m stupid, convince me I’m sick,

  Assert that my skull is some four inches thick.

  And then pretty soon when you’ve got me below

  The point where my misery’d normally go,

  I’ll begin to feel better; I’ll shake off my woes,

  And I’ll haul off and give you a sock on the nose.

  By which you will know that your duty is done.

  It may have been painful—may not have been fun;

  But though flat on your back with your nose in a sling,

  You’re satisfied, knowing you’ve done the right thing.

  When he had finished he was hungry and he put on his war bonnet and went down to dinner.

  Zingo had evidently finished when Freddy got into the dining room, for he was sitting in the lobby with his back to the door, and paid no attention to the pig. Apparently he didn’t see him either when, nearly an hour later, Freddy came out and went off down the street.

  “Why does he keep twisting that moustache all the time,” Freddy wondered. “Must be nervous. I expect he’s very highly strung—all magicians are. So are all pigs, for that matter, but of course pigs don’t have moustaches. Rather a pity. Good way to let off extra steam when you’re nervous. All I can do is squeal and jump up and down. Though I suppose I could twist my tail. If I could reach it. Might make a poem out of that.”

  These reflections carried him to the door of the Busy Bee Department Store. He passed several acquaintances as he went down the stairs to the basement, and was relieved when no one recognized him. He bought a few things, and had started up the stairs again when someone brushed by him so closely that he was nearly knocked off his feet.

  A woman behind him said indignantly: “Such manners!” He turned to look and saw that it was Signor Zingo who had jostled him. Evidently the magician had been in a hurry and hadn’t noticed him at all. But as he turned to go on there was a shout behind him of “Stop, thief! Stop that boy!” and he swung round to see Zingo running towards him, waving his arms excitedly.

  “Oh, gosh!” said Freddy. In an instant he was surrounded by a lot of yelling angry people who hustled and snatched at him, while Zingo, holding firmly to his arm, kept shouting: “He stole my billfold! Search his pockets!”

  Freddy knew perfectly well that Zingo’s billfold would be found in his pocket. He
remembered now to have felt a tug at the side of his coat when the magician had pushed past him. He was in a spot, all right. But he could only submit when Mr. Metacarpus, the manager of the Busy Bee, came pushing through the crowd.

  Mr. Metacarpus was a tall man who spent most of his time walking through the store, blowing through his big moustache and keeping an eye on the clerks, to see that they didn’t slap the customers. For the Busy Bee clerks were a pretty independent crew, and there were a lot of the customers who deserved to be slapped all right. A number of the clerks did too, for that matter. If everybody got what was coming to them, there would be a lot of red cheeks in the big department stores, on both sides of the counter.

  Mr. Metacarpus stood in front of Freddy, rubbing his hands and bowing from the waist as if the pig was a customer. Everybody was quiet to hear what he would say. And he said: “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “What seems to be the trouble?”

  Immediately everyone began talking at once. But Mr. Metacarpus was used to that. The motto of the Busy Bee was: “The customer is always right, but never admit it.” And so in the store there were a good many disputes between clerks and customers that Mr. Metacarpus had to settle. Experience had taught him that the quickest way to settle one was to get the person that made the most noise and the one that said the least together in his office and thrash the question out. So as Signor Zingo was just about shouting his head off, and Freddy wasn’t saying anything at all, he said: “If you gentlemen will just come into my office …”

  Mr. Metacarpus and Signor Zingo and Freddy went into the office and shut the door, and Mr. Metacarpus searched Freddy. And he found, not only Zingo’s billfold, but three neckties and a harmonica and four candy bars and a bottle of hair tonic. All of these things had the store’s pricemark on them. Signor Zingo had certainly done a thorough job.

  Mr. Metacarpus blew through his moustache and said: “Terrible! Terrible! Such a thing hasn’t happened in the Busy Bee in all the years I have been managing it. What is your name, you little villain?”

  “He’s old Groper’s nephew, at the hotel,” said Zingo quickly. “Pretty young to be a pickpocket, but I expect Groper has trained him.”

  “Groper wouldn’t do that,” said Mr. Metacarpus. “Oh, no; why I went to school with Ollie Groper!”

  “What is that supposed to prove?” said Zingo contemptuously. “I went to school with Ed Flaggett, who’s doing ten years for highway robbery, but does that prove I’m a crook?”

  “But you are a crook,” said Freddy. “You planted those things in my pocket. When you went downstairs and …”

  Smack! Zingo’s hand slapped Freddy’s cheek hard. “Shut up, you miserable little thief! Well, Mr. Manager, are you going to call the police?”

  Mr. Metacarpus was pretty nearsighted or he would certainly have recognized Freddy, for although they were not friends, he knew the pig by sight. He reached for the phone. “Oh, I suppose so. Couldn’t we just give him a licking and let him go? He’s pretty young to go to jail.”

  Zingo appeared to give this some thought. “Why, I don’t want to be too hard on him … I wonder … How would it be if I just gave him a good talking to? After all, I’ve got my billfold and you’ve got your goods. Suppose you just leave me alone with him here for a while?”

  Mr. Metacarpus said perhaps that would be the best thing, and went out and shut the door.

  Zingo’s manner changed at once. He smiled his meanest smile. “Well, my friend, so you thought you could put something over on Zingo, eh? And now Zingo’s got you, like that!” He reached out and gave Freddy a vicious pinch.

  Freddy sat still. He was pretty sure he could lick Zingo in a fair fight, but he couldn’t lick Mr. Metacarpus and everybody in the Busy Bee, and that is what he would have to do to get away. But he added it up in his mind: two pinches and a slap. He would send in his bill for those some day, with interest.

  “You thought I didn’t know you, I suppose, because I didn’t look at you very closely,” Zingo went on. “But I’ve been watching you when you didn’t know it; I’ve got eyes in the back of my head, pig.”

  Freddy didn’t say anything.

  “And don’t count on your friend the sheriff—we’ve caught you with the goods, and he’ll have to arrest you and put you in jail for a good long time.” Zingo stopped smiling. “You stupid, fat pig!” he snarled. “You and those silly animals, all puffed up with pride and dumbness! To think you could fool me!—me who have fooled doctors and lawyers, kings and schoolteachers and major generals!” He went on and made quite a speech about himself.

  Freddy still didn’t say anything.

  At last Zingo stopped. He walked to the window and stood looking out, with his back to Freddy, fingering his moustache, and Freddy caught the glitter of the little mirror on his ring. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “Give me back my hat and I’ll let you go.”

  Freddy said: “Give me what you’ve got left of that hundred and thirty dollars you skinned me out of, and I’ll give it back.”

  “You’re in no position to bargain,” said Zingo. “Give it back or go to jail.”

  “I don’t mind going to jail,” said Freddy. “It’s a nice jail. I spend a lot of time there anyway.”

  Zingo shrugged. “I won that money fairly,” he said. “But I don’t want to be hard on you. I’ll give you back fifty of it.”

  There was something pretty funny about this, Freddy thought. Why was Zingo so anxious to get the hat back? It was just an ordinary silk hat with a trick lining; Zingo could get another one made for much less than fifty dollars. There could be only one answer: something of value was concealed in the hat. Something small, something that Presto certainly knew about … He said: “All right. I’ll go get the hat now.”

  So Zingo went out and spoke to Mr. Metacarpus and they let Freddy go. “But if you’re not back before supper with the hat,” the magician said, “we’ll have the state troopers as well as the sheriff on your trail. So I wouldn’t try to hide or run away.”

  But Freddy had no intention of running away. He trotted straight out to the farm. At the bank he got the hat up from the vault and examined it. At first he could find nothing in it. The secret compartment in the top was quite empty. But under the lining, on one side it seemed to be just a trifle thicker. He loosened a few of the stitches and there underneath, pasted to the side of the hat, was an envelope. He got it out. In it were nine fifty-dollar bills.

  Unquestionably that was part of the money Zingo had stolen from Mr. Boomschmidt—the part Presto said the magician had lost. And of course he had lost it, when the hat blew away. “This explains a lot of things,” said Freddy, and he left the money in the vault and trotted back to Centerboro with the hat.

  It would be foolish to trust Zingo to carry out his side of the bargain. He certainly wouldn’t carry it out if he knew that the money was gone. So Freddy went first to the Busy Bee and got Mr. Metacarpus to go with him to the hotel, where they found Signor Zingo in the lobby. The magician didn’t dare to look in the hat for the money in front of Mr. Metacarpus. But he took the hat with him when he went up to his room to get the fifty dollars he had promised Freddy.

  “Well,” said Mr. Metacarpus, “I must be getting back.” He looked severely at Freddy and blew out his moustache, pooff, as if to get it out of the way of what he was about to say. “I hope, young man, that this will be a lesson to you. You have escaped a severe and well-deserved punishment only through the generosity of Signor Zingo. I hope you are properly grateful. I hope you realize,” said Mr. Metacarpus, “that crime does not pay.”

  “I wish you could make Zingo realize that,” Freddy said. “I didn’t steal those things; he planted them on me. He’s a sleight of hand performer—it was easy for him. But please don’t go till he comes back. I want a witness here.”

  Mr. Metacarpus blew his moustache out, then sucked it in, then blew it out again. “I don’t understand all this,” he said. “What is this hat? Where d
id you get it? It is all very confusing.”

  At that moment Signor Zingo appeared at the head of the stairs. He looked very much upset; his hands were closing and unclosing nervously and when he called to Freddy it was plain that he was refraining from some very bad language only with the greatest difficulty. “You—boy! Come here! Come up here a minute!”

  “You come down,” said Freddy calmly.

  “Come up!” said Zingo. “I want to—I want to speak to you. Come up and get your reward.”

  “You give it to me right here,” said Freddy firmly.

  “OK,” shouted Zingo, suddenly losing all control of his temper. “I will!” And he made a dash down the stairs.

  His intention of beating up Freddy was so plain that Mr. Metacarpus put a protecting hand on the pig’s shoulder. “Come, come, sir,” he said, “no disturbance, I beg. If you have any complaint to make …”

  Freddy saw no point in staying around the hotel any longer. He was out in the street in two seconds and running for his life. Although he was still in the Indian suit, he had to run on all fours really to make time, and it surprised an awful lot of passers-by to see what they thought was a little boy in fringed leggings and a war bonnet galloping up the middle of the street like a four-footed animal with a magician in pursuit. Several older people got so confused by the sight that they shouted: “Runaway! Runaway!” and tried to stop him. But Freddy dodged them successfully, and soon left Zingo far behind.

  Chapter 15

  Freddy made straight for the jail. Some of the prisoners were playing croquet, and they waved their mallets and called to him to join them, but he only waved back and went on in to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff was just hanging up the phone, and he said: “Hello, Freddy. Been talking to Ollie Groper. He’s kind of disappointed in you, I guess.”

  “Well,” said Freddy, “I don’t blame him. But if I’d had you arrest Zingo, you’d have had him as a prisoner here, and I knew you wouldn’t like that. Anyway, I didn’t want him to be locked up, because then he couldn’t give his show Tuesday night, and I’ve got some plans about that. After the show I’ll figure out some way of getting him out of the hotel. But right now I’ve discovered something pretty important.” And he told his friend about the money he had found in Zingo’s hat.