The audience was bent forward in silence. Jake, crouched within the narrow darkness of the box, pictured to himself the scene outside. At the magic words, a flashlight would shoot upward toward the rafters where Jerry had taken his station, and Jerry would drop to the stage and finish the act amid the plaudits of the crowd.
“Hocus-pocus. Come high!” repeated Chink, in a nervous tone. Jake wished he could see out of his tight prison, and wondered at the delay. Titters came from the smaller boys in the front of the audience. Why didn’t Jerry come down?
“Come high!” Chink sounded disgruntled. “Maybe so white boy no come, no can fly out. That’s all—goo’-bye!”
The rings of the curtain rattled as they were drawn together to cut off the scene. The big act had failed. There was a half-hearted clapping from the audience, who of course did not see any point in the sudden ending of the act. With such an anti-climax, the Magician sketch could scarcely hope to win a prize.
Jake squirmed in a frantic effort to get out of the box. “Get up, Fat!” he called urgently, and felt the heavy boy’s weight removed from the lid. Jake sprang out like a Jack-in-the box, alive with eagerness to see why their carefully-laid scheme had fallen through. He met a disgusted look from the grease-painted face of the Mysterious Mandarin.
“Fine brother you’ve got!” muttered Chink. “I thought he was going to be all ready up there when the time came!”
“But—but he was!” stammered Jake. “I—I saw him up there just a minute ago!”
“Well, he’s not there now,” Chink growled, turning away. Jake cast his eyes aloft.
The beam of a flashlight still slanted upward toward the raftered corner under the roof. But Jerry Utway was nowhere in sight!