Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/457

 performances surpassed all expectations. His elegant appearance, his eloquence, a light and even sarcastic wit, and a technical skill acquired through many years’ training, served him well in the most difficult experiments. As evidence of his skill, I shall mention a few out of many hundreds of more or less familiar experiments which I have myself seen. Swallowing burning tar and stones, drawing threads and ribbons out of one’s mouth, thrusting a knife into one’s breast, are mostly feats of obsolete jugglery; but he knew how to perform these and other tricks so well that he could rival the most famous magician.

At the wedding-feast of one of my relatives he once performed an original and pretty experiment. We were seated at a long table, in the centre of a spacious hall. There were about twelve persons in all. The bride was sitting at the head of the table, the bridegroom beside her, then the bridesmaid and the groomsman. I sat opposite the bridesmaid, my friend was at the other end of the table, about nine feet from the bride. We were in gay spirits. The menu was excellent, and joke and jest soon ruled the field of talk. When the feast was near its end, a large deep dish of boiled crabs was served and placed before the bride. But she either did not fancy that dish or was too mindful of etiquette; for she asked the groom to pass it on. He obeyed, and the dish passed from hand to hand until it came, though nearly empty, back to the bride. Only small crabs were left, and seeing that the groom had not yet been served, the bride was about to pick out for him one or two of the best that were left; she bowed her head a little, looked over the dish with her pretty blue eyes, and seized the largest crab. But hardly had she put it on the groom’s plate when she shrieked in terror and pushed back from the table: from the plate there looked at her a loathsome toad.

“What’s that?” the bridegroom cried out, and stabbed the creature with his fork. The toad leaped from the plate upon the table, in front of the bride. All guests showed surprise; but my friend quietly sitting at the other end of the table said, “Why do you stab the little unfortunate?” Then he arose and touched the toad, which leaped over the bride’s head toward the door.