Then Peter flung the handkerchief over his hand and arm, and we could see that he was working away vigorously at something beneath it.  He continued for some moments, and still the gold-fish did not appear.  Then he began to grow very red in the face, and we saw that something was the matter.  Then the perspiration began to stand on Peter’s forehead, and Mrs. Brown asked him if anything serious was the matter.  Then the company smiled, and the magician grew redder; but he kept on fumbling beneath that handkerchief, and apparently trying to reach around under his coat-tails.  Then we heard something snap, and the next moment a quart of water ran down the wizard’s left leg and spread out over the carpet.  By this time he looked as if joy had forsaken him for ever.  But still he continued to feel around under the handkerchief.  At last another snap was heard, and another quart of water plunged down his right leg and formed a pool about his shoe.  Then the necromancer hurriedly said that the experiment had failed somehow, and he darted into the dining-room.  We followed him, and found him sitting on the sofa trying to remove his pantaloons.  He exclaimed,

“Oh, gracious!  Come here quick, and pull these off!  They’re soaking wet, and I’ve got fifteen live gold-fish inside my trousers flipping around, and rasping the skin with their fins enough to set a man crazy.  Ouch!  Hurry that shoe off, and catch that fish there at my left knee, or I’ll have to howl right out.”

[Illustration:  THE GOLDFISH TRICK]

Then we undressed him and picked the fish out of his clothes, and we discovered that he had had two dishes full of water and covered with India-rubber tops strapped inside his trousers behind.  In his struggle to get at them he had torn the covers to rags.  We fixed him up in a pair of Dr. Brown’s trousers, which were six inches too short for him, and then he climbed over the back fence and went home.  Such misfortunes would have discouraged most men utterly, but Peter was desperately in love; and a week or two later, without stopping to estimate his chances, he proposed to his fair enchantress.  She refused him promptly, of course.  He seemed almost wild over his defeat, and his friends feared that some evil consequences would ensue.  Their apprehensions were realized.  Peter called upon young Potts and asked him if he had a revolver, and Potts said he had.  Peter asked Potts to lend it to him, and Potts did so.  Then Peter informed Potts that he had made up his mind to commit suicide.  He said that since Miss Brown had dealt so unkindly with him he felt that life was an insupportable burden, and he could find relief only in the tomb.  He intended to go down by the river-shore and there blow out his brains, and so end all this suffering and grief and bid farewell to a world that had grown dark to him.  He said that he mentioned the fact to Potts in confidence because he wanted him to perform some little offices for him when he was gone.  He entrusted to Potts