And Skinski kept his word.

He skilfully led Uncle Peter around to a discussion of sleight-of-hand, and two minutes later the Wonder Worker was dragging the coal shovel and the vinegar cruet out of the Mayor’s inside pockets, to the intense mystification and delight of the old gentleman.

Uncle Peter was wearing a small diamond pin in his cravat and quite by accident the setting became loose and the stone dropped to the floor.

The old gentleman became very much concerned about it and we all started to look for it.

“Wait a minute!” said Skinski; “the spark fell in your left-hand vest pocket.”

Uncle Peter looked at him blankly.  “Impossible, why, there’s nothing there but this box of quinine pills for my cold.”

“Open it,” said Skinski, and Uncle Peter did so.

“How many of those do you usually take in a day?” asked Skinski.

“Four,” replied the puzzled old gentleman.

“Drop four of them in your left hand,” ordered Skinski.

Uncle Peter’s right hand trembled a bit, with the result that five of the quinines fell into his left hand.

“If you counted money the way you count pills you’d quit loser,” chuckled Skinski.  “Put four of those dizzy-wizzys back in the box.”

The old gentleman did so.

“Now take your penknife and open the pill you didn’t put back,” commanded Skinski.

Uncle Peter obeyed instructions, and he nearly choked with astonishment when his diamond came to view.

It was a neat bit of work and Skinski became a solid success with Uncle Peter.

“Did I understand you to say, Mr. McGowan, that you are a commission merchant in Springfield, Ohio?” the Mayor asked Skinski when the applause had subsided.

“I’m a used to was,” Skinski corrected.  “There was a time when I commished for fair, but the bogie man caught me and I lose all I had.  Since then I’ve been trying to sell a gold mine I own out in the Blue Hills.”

I tried to sidetrack Skinski and lead him away from the smoking room, but Uncle Peter insisted upon hearing more about those dreamland gold mines.

“I’ve got the documents and everything to prove that my claim is all the goods,” Skinski rattled on.  “All it needs is the capital to work it and it’s a bonanza, sure—­isn’t it, Dodey—­I mean Flo!”

“You betcher sweet!” she answered, whereupon Peaches and Aunt Martha had a fit of coughing which lasted three minutes.

Then Uncle Peter coaxed Skinski off in a corner and there they hobnobbed for fifteen minutes while my wife and her aunt and I tried to get cheerful and chatty with “Aunt Flo,” but we only succeeded in dragging from her four reluctant “You betcher sweets!”

Presently Uncle Peter and Skinski shook hands about something, and five minutes later Bunch’s “relatives” took their departure to the accompaniment of much internal applause on my part.