"like some fat gentleman who bobbed for eels."

First of all, another strip of calico was placed loosely round Miss
Fay's neck; the curtain descended. Hey, presto! it was up again, sooner
than it takes to write, and this strip was knotted doubly and trebly
round her neck. A tambourine hoop was put in her lap, and this, in like
manner, was found encircling her neck, as far as the effervescent hair
would allow it.

The audience at this point grew a little fidgety; and though they did
not say anything against the Oriental young gentleman, the 'cute
American colonel understood it, adding two others from the audience to
the committee on the stage, and leaving the young gentleman to "bob"
down below as if to keep him out of mischief.

The other "manifestations" were really only different in detail from the
first. The guitar was placed on the lap, the curtain fell and it played;
so did the fiddle--out of tune, as usual--and also a little glass
harmonicon with actually a soupcon of melody. A mouth-organ
tootle-tooed, and what Colonel Fay described as a "shingle nail" was
driven with a hammer into a piece of wood. A third of a tumbler of water
laid on the lap of the Indescribable Phenomenon was drunk, and the great
Pail Sensation consisted in the bucket being put on her lap and then
discovered slung by the handle around her neck. The last "manifestation"
is the one to which I would draw attention; for it was by this I
discovered how it was all done. A knife was put on Miss Fay's lap; the
curtain lowered, the knife pitched on to the platform, and behold the
Indescribable Phenomenon stepped from the cabinet with the ligature that
had bound her wrists and neck severed.

Now, all through this portion of the entertainment the audience,
instead of sitting quiet, amused themselves with proposing idiotic
tests, or suggesting audibly how it was all done. One man behind me
pertinaciously clung to the theory of a concealed boy, and trotted him
to the front after every phase of the exhibition. He must have been
infinitesimally small; but that did not matter. It was "that boy again"
after every trick. One manifestation consisted in putting a piece of
paper and pair of scissors on Miss Fay's lap, and having several "tender
little infants" cut out, as the Colonel phrased it.

Hereupon sprang up a 'cute individual in the room, and produced a sheet
of paper he had marked. Would Miss Fay cut out a tender little infant
from that? Miss Fay con