ch might have been a smile, or something else.

Hoskins van Huysman was a strong man, and he knew it. Not very many
years before, he had been able to shoulder a sack of flour and take it
away at a run, and now he could bend a poker across his shoulders
without much trouble. He stooped down and gripped the ball, expecting,
of course, to lift it quite easily. It didn't move. He put more force
into his arms and tried again. For "all the move he got on it," as he
said afterwards, it might have weighed a ton. It was ridiculous, but it
was a fact. In spite of all his pulling and straining, the ball remained
where it was as though it had been rooted in the foundations of the
world. He was wise enough to know when he was beaten, so he let go, and
when he pulled himself up, somewhat flushed after his exertions, he
said:

"Well, Mister Phadrig, I don't know how you do it, but I've got to
confess that it lets me out. I'm beaten. If you can make the law of
gravitation do what you want, you're a lot bigger man in physics than I
am."

He turned and went back to his place, looking, as his daughter whispered
to Nitocris, "pretty well shaken up." The Prince caught Phadrig's eye
for an instant, and said:

"Miss Marmion, will you confound the wisdom of the wise and bring the
ball here?"

It was not the words but the challenge in them that impelled her to
rise from her chair, aided by Merrill's hand, and not the one that the
Prince held out, and walk across the lawn towards Phadrig. She took no
notice of him. She just stooped and picked up the ball and carried it
back to her chair. She tossed it down on the grass, and sat down again
without a word, quaking with many inward emotions, but outwardly as calm
as ever. What Professor van Huysman said to himself when he saw this
will be better left to himself.

It might have been expected that the miracle, or at least the
extraordinary defiance of physical law which had been accomplished by
Phadrig, would have produced something like consternation among the bulk
of the spectators. It did nothing of the sort. They were, perhaps, above
the ordinary level of Society intellect in London; but they only saw
something wonderful in what had been done. Nothing would have persuaded
them that it was not the result of such skill as produced the marvels of
the Egyptian Hall, simply because they were not capable of grasping its
inner significance. Could they have done that, the panic which Professor