his bit of bread.  Oh fleeting joys of human life! the duck, so tame yesterday, is quite wild to-day; instead of offering its beak it turns tail and swims away; it avoids the bread and the hand that holds it as carefully as it followed them yesterday.  After many vain attempts accompanied by derisive shouts from the audience the child complains that he is being cheated, that is not the same duck, and he defies the conjuror to attract it.

The conjuror, without further words, takes a bit of bread and offers it to the duck, which at once follows it and comes to the hand which holds it.  The child takes the same bit of bread with no better success; the duck mocks his efforts and swims round the basin.  Overwhelmed with confusion he abandons the attempt, ashamed to face the crowd any longer.  Then the conjuror takes the bit of bread the child brought with him and uses it as successfully as his own.  He takes out the bit of iron before the audience—­another laugh at our expense—­then with this same bread he attracts the duck as before.  He repeats the experiment with a piece of bread cut by a third person in full view of the audience.  He does it with his glove, with his finger-tip.  Finally he goes into the middle of the room and in the emphatic tones used by such persons he declares that his duck will obey his voice as readily as his hand; he speaks and the duck obeys; he bids him go to the right and he goes, to come back again and he comes.  The movement is as ready as the command.  The growing applause completes our discomfiture.  We slip away unnoticed and shut ourselves up in our room, without relating our successes to everybody as we had expected.

Next day there is a knock at the door.  When I open it there is the conjuror, who makes a modest complaint with regard to our conduct.  What had he done that we should try to discredit his tricks and deprive him of his livelihood?  What is there so wonderful in attracting a duck that we should purchase this honour at the price of an honest man’s living?  “My word, gentlemen! had I any other trade by which I could earn a living I would not pride myself on this.  You may well believe that a man who has spent his life at this miserable trade knows more about it than you who only give your spare time to it.  If I did not show you my best tricks at first, it was because one must not be so foolish as to display all one knows at once.  I always take care to keep my best tricks for emergencies; and I have plenty more to prevent young folks from meddling.  However, I have come, gentlemen, in all kindness, to show you the trick that gave you so much trouble; I only beg you not to use it to my hurt, and to be more discreet in future.”  He then shows us his apparatus, and to our great surprise we find it is merely a strong magnet in the hand of a boy concealed under the table.  The man puts up his things, and after we have offered our thanks and apologies, we try to give him something.  He refuses it.  “No, gentlemen,” says he, “I owe you no gratitude and I will not accept your gift.  I leave you in my debt in spite of all, and that is my only revenge.  Generosity may be found among all sorts of people, and I earn my pay by doing my tricks not by teaching them.”