his bread. Alas for
the changes in human affairs! The duck, yesterday so tame, had grown
wild. Instead of presenting its bill, it turned about and swam away,
avoiding the bread and the hand which presented it, as carefully as it
had before followed them. After many fruitless attempts, each received
with derision, the child complained that a trick was played on him, and
defied the juggler to attract the duck.

The man, without a word, took a piece of bread and presented it to the
duck, which instantly followed it, and came towards his hand. The
child took the same bit of bread; but far from having better success,
he saw the duck make sport of him by whirling round and round as it
swam about the edge of the basin. At last he retired in great
confusion, no longer daring to encounter the hisses which followed.

Then the juggler took the bit of bread the child had brought, and
succeeded as well with it as with his own. In the presence of the
entire company he drew out the needle, making another joke at our
expense; then, with the bread thus disarmed, he attracted the duck as
before. He did the same thing with a piece of bread which a third
person cut off in the presence of all; again, with his glove, and with
the tip of his finger. At last, going to the middle of the room, he
declared in the emphatic tone peculiar to his sort, that the duck would
obey his voice quite as well as his gesture. He spoke, and the duck
obeyed him; commanded it to go to the right, and it went to the right;
to return, and it did so; to turn, and it turned itself about. Each
movement was as prompt as the command. The redoubled applause was a
repeated affront to us. We stole away unmolested, and shut ourselves
up in our room, without proclaiming our success far and wide as we had
meant to do.

There was a knock at our door next morning; I opened it, and there
stood the mountebank, who modestly complained of our conduct. What had
he done to us that we should try to throw discredit on his performances
and take away his livelihood? What is so wonderful in the art of
attracting a wax duck, that the honor should be worth the price of an
honest man's living? "Faith, gentlemen, if I had any other way of
earning my bread, I should boast very little of this way. You may well
believe that a man who has spent his life in practising this pitiful
trade understands it much better than you, who devote only a few
minutes to it. If I did not show