"Folks is gettin' geniuser and geniuser every day, boys. Ain't it so?" And Pete nudged Jim to make sure it was no dream, then spat excitedly on the rusty stove.
The proprietor had been eyeing me with suspicion for a good while. I noticed whenever I would pass in front of him he would step back and plant his hands tight on his pockets where he kept his money, as if he thought I might somehow coax it to jump out unless he held it in by main force. Legerdemain had scared him some and made him both suspicious and wary.
Pretty soon I began to realize I had done a little too much; in fact, I had given them a little more than they had been able to digest. But like many another fool who has overstepped, I tried to make up by giving them something in another line.
The proprietor looked up with a distrustful glance. "Is that all you can do?"
"That's all in the trick line, gentlemen. But I have something that I can do that is out of the line of tricks. It's a gift—mind-reading. Only about one in six millions has it. I do the same as Brown, Johnson or Bishop—those big guns you have heard about—in finding any given object. And if you, sir (to the proprietor), will place your mind on any one of the ten thousand articles in this store, concentrating your mind on it, I will get the object you are thinking about and hand it to you."
"You can't do that; it ain't possible," he said.
One of the boys spoke up: "Aw, let him try, Dan. Gosh! Let him try."
After looking around the store and meditating a little he said: "Durn it all, then, go ahead. I've picked out the thing I want you to get and by jigger I'll keep my mind on it all right."
Taking his hand, placing it upon my forehead, and holding it there with one of mine, I started down the store, the other six rubbering after us with all their might. After going about thirty feet with an occasional kick or bump at a basket or barrel that happened to be in the way, I turned to the left; stopping at the show-case, and sliding back the doors, I reached in, picked up a razor—his own razor—that lay in the case and handed it to him.
"Great Scott," he yelled. "The very razor I shave myself with—when I shave; and that's the very thing I had my mind on too, by thunder." The sweat stood out in great drops on his forehead and for a few minutes his emotion seemed to be too much for him. So I said: