The swarm was thickest, sand the jabbering loudest, the
"O-o-oh's," the "M! Looky's" the "Geeminently's" shrillest, in
front of where the deeds of high emprise were set forth. Men
with their fists clenched on their breasts, and their neatly
slippered toes touching the backs of their heads, crashed through
paper-covered hoops beneath which horses madly coursed; they
flew through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young
men on the flying; trapeze, or they posed in living pyramids.
And as the sons of men assembled themselves together, Satan came
also, the spirit I, that evermore denies.
"A-a-ah!" sneers his embodiment in one whose crackling voice
cannot make up its mind whether to be bass or treble, "A-a-ah,
to the show they down't do hay-uf what they is in the pitchers."
A chilling silence follows. A cold uneasiness strikes into all
the listeners. We are all made wretched by destructive criticism.
Let us alone in our ideals. Let us alone, can't you?
"Now . . . now," pursues the crackle-voiced Mephisto, pointing to
where Japanese jugglers defy the law of gravitation and other
experiences of daily life, "now, they cain't walk up no ladder
made out o' reel sharp swords."
"They can so walk up it," stoutly declares one boy. Hurrah! A
champion to the rescue! The others edge closer to him.
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