And then, agin, it might be that Josiah wuz right.

He sez, “It’s easy enough to do that.  He casts a mist before our eyes, and we have to see jest what he wanted us to.”

“Wall,” sez I, “if I had to do one of ’em to entertain the Missionary Society at Jonesville, I d’no but I had jest as soon hist Submit Tewksbury up in the air, and suspend her there in our parlor, as to cast mists before the eyes of the Jonesvillians and make ’em see her there when she wuz a-settin’ on the sofa.  Either one on ’em is queer—­queer as a dog.”

“Wall,” sez he, “you don’t want to go into any sech a job.  You’ll kill Submit, anyway, experimentin’ on her.”

And I sez, “You needn’t worry; I hain’t a-goin’ to try to branch out into no sech doin’s.”  Sez I, “I wuz usin’ Submit as a metafor.”

Wall, the Fakir after a while asked the queer-lookin’ crowd gathered round him for money to try more experiments with.

And wantin’ to branch out and outdo Bizer, and make himself a hero, Josiah planked out a five-dollar bill.

And then the man asked Josiah to look in his hat, and there inside the band he found the money, or so it seemed.

And then he told me to look in my pocket, and there wuz five silver dollars to all appearance.

I felt real well about it, and wuz about to put ’em into my portmoney, thinkin’ that they wuz my lawful prey, seein’ they had fell onto me through my pardner’s weakness, when lo and behold! they wuzn’t there.

I felt real stunted, and kinder sot back.

“Slight of hand,” sez Josiah to me and Bizer.  “Don’t be afraid, I’ll make it all right.”  And he reached out his hand to git the money back.  The man handed the money back, or so we spozed, and vanished in the crowd.

And Josiah, when he went to look in his hand, found some pink and white paper.  He hollered round and acted for quite a spell, but the man wuz gone for good, and Josiah’s money with him.  Wall, Josiah wuz almost broken-hearted over the loss of his money; he felt awful browbeat and smut, and acted so.

And then it wuz Bizer’s time to show off and act.  Nothin’ to do but what Selinda had got to ride a camel.

She hung back and acted ’fraid.  She hain’t a bit well, for all she is so fat.  She has real dizzy spells sometimes, and is that cowardly that she’d be ’fraid to ride a cow, let alone one of them tall, humbly monsters.  But nothin’ to do but what Bizer would have his way.

He did it jest to go ahead of us, and I knew it, for I put my foot right down in the first on’t.

Josiah would a paid out the money willin’ly ruther than had Bizer go ahead of him.

Bizer said he wanted to give Selinda all the enjoyment he could while on her tower, she had been shet up so much, and hadn’t had the pleasures she ort to had.

I knew his motives and Selinda’s feelin’s, but couldn’t break it up, for Selinda had always follered Elder Minkley’s orders strict, that he gin her at the altar—­