"You see this?" said Warner, holding up the coin.
"Yes sir, much money."
Now Warner didn't know how to palm a coin. He had seen it done, of course, but had never yet tried to palm or to do anything else in the nature of a conjuring trick. To guard against possible accident, he turned his back upon the boy and very cautiously opened the box.
It was full of some bright yellow metallic powder. He read the directions again and wondered what Trick No. 6 might be. He wished he had risked a pill.
However, he had not the courage to go back now. The native might suspect his ignorance if he selected another box. It was hardly playing the game perhaps to trick a poor confiding black, but Warner consoled himself with the thought that it is said of even real doctors that when in doubt they sometimes give their patients bread pills.
So, emptying the contents of the box into his right hand, he turned again and began to rub the golden powder into the native's woolly head. The sovereign he held in his left hand.
The more he rubbed, the brighter grew his patient's head. It scintillated.
The trick pleased Warner, who soon forgot his misgivings; he forgot the sovereign too, and rubbed the powder in with both hands.
The coin fell into the patient's lap. Warner was busy and didn't notice the accident at once, but the native did. He picked up the money and quietly slipped it into the rawhide pouch attached to his belt.
At length Warner stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. The boy's head shone like a brass knob. He glanced at his own hands. They looked as if they had been gilded. Both hands! Where the devil had that sovereign gone to?