you made a ring of skulls, for I had seen that in the Freischutz:
and that you took off your coat and turned up your sleeves, for I had
seen Formes do that when he was playing Kaspar, and you could see (by
the way he went about it) it was a business he had studied; and that you
ought to have something to kick up a smoke and a bad smell, I dare say
a cigar might do, and that you ought to say the Lord's Prayer backwards.
Well, I wondered if I could do that; it seemed rather a feat, you see.
And then I wondered if I would say it forward, and I thought I did.
Well, no sooner had I got to WORLD WITHOUT END, than I saw a man in a
pariu, and with a mat under his arm, come along the beach from the town.
He was rather a hard-favoured old party, and he limped and crippled, and
all the time he kept coughing. At first I didn't cotton to his looks,
I thought, and then I got sorry for the old soul because he coughed so
hard. I remembered that we had some of that cough mixture the American
consul gave the captain for Hay. It never did Hay a ha'porth of service,
but I thought it might do the old gentleman's business for him, and
stood up. "Yorana!" says I. "Yorana!" says he. "Look here," I said,
"I've got some first-rate stuff in a bottle; it'll fix your cough,
savvy? Harry my and I'll measure you a tablespoonful in the palm of my
hand, for all our plate is at the bankers." So I thought the old party
came up, and the nearer he came, the less I took to him. But I had
passed my word, you see.'

'Wot is this bloomin' drivel?' interrupted the clerk. 'It's like the rot
there is in tracts.'

'It's a story; I used to tell them to the kids at home,' said Herrick.
'If it bores you, I'll drop it.'

'O, cut along!' returned the sick man, irritably. 'It's better than
nothing.'

'Well,' continued Herrick, 'I had no sooner given him the cough mixture
than he seemed to straighten up and change, and I saw he wasn't a
Tahitian after all, but some kind of Arab, and had a long beard on his
chin. "One good turn deserves another," says he. "I am a magician out
of the Arabian Nights, and this mat that I have under my arm is the
original carpet of Mohammed Ben Somebody-or-other. Say the word, and you
can have a cruise upon the carpet." "You don't mean to say this is the
Travelling Carpet?" I cried. "You bet I do," said he. "You've been
to America since last I read the Arabian Nights," said I, a little
suspicious. "I should think so," said he. "Been ever