THE VANISHING TRICK
“There isn’t room for you to work, never tell of me;” adding, “You had better go and get you right clothes on. Bring the drum and all our belongings you can get hold on, and slip out at the back door the best way that you can.” I obeyed. The “orchestra” was discoursing diverting music. I went down to exchange monkey for man, so to speak, and, this done, and having collected our properties, I made my way, happily undetected, out of the house, and cut across the fields. Weighed down as I was with the copper taken at the door, and in my anxiety to look after everything and get away as fast as I could, I let the drum slip from my grasp. It rolled down a steep field, and for a short time I had a fine chase after it. “But where was Jack Spencer?” readers will be wondering. Yes; I had forgot all about Jack for the minute. As he afterwards told me, he got away all right except for a little mishap which befell him just after he had left the place. Opposite the Fleece Inn was a cartwright’s shop (I believe the shop is there now), and behind the wall skirting the roadway was placed an old cart. Spencer knew not of either of these things, and when he lightly mounted the wall and leaped—before he had looked—it was to find himself in the cart, or, to be more precise, falling through the bottom of it. He rather lamed his leg, and had to limp up to Merrall’s mill, where I was waiting for him. Together, we made for Keighley, and on arriving there we “put up” at the Lord Rodney Inn, in Church Green, which was then kept by Mrs Fox. Safe in the hostelry, we counted up our spoil, and, perhaps, congratulated ourselves that we had got off so easily. Jack told me that before leaving the entertainment he told the fiddler to play up “special,” as he was going to do a “fine trick.”