“I mention these little matters in order to give you an idea of the place, in case any of you might like to take a week-end trip there. If you are old and tough, you might risk it. If you are young and tender, you had better not.
“The special point of interest is a curious pagoda in the centre of the village. It is seventy-five feet high and is supposed to be the habitation of Mumbo Jumbo; a sort of deputy devil, much respected in those parts. This little model is an exact copy of it. You can’t call it pretty, but there is a very remarkable thing about it. When the king dies (which happens by accident about once a fortnight), the pagoda is pulled down, and if the new king is acceptable to Mumbo Jumbo (which depends upon the amount of his tip to the chief witch doctor) old Mum rebuilds it himself by magic. You don’t see him do it. The pagoda just sits up and paws the air, so to speak. If Mumbo does not approve, the proposed king gets a knock on the head with a cocoa-nut, and some more liberal Golliwogg is crowned instead.
“I naturally wanted to know how the miracle was worked; and I managed to buy the secret from one of the witch doctors. He sold it to me for a pair of sixpenny-half penny sock suspenders. He didn’t wear socks, but that didn’t matter. He put the suspenders on at once and strutted about, as proud as a dog with three tails.
“Now, I am going to tell you the secret. Scientists tell us that the sun throws out three sorts of rays; light-rays, heat-rays, and force-rays. The artful witch doctors have found out a way of bottling off the force rays. They are mild at first, but when they get old in the bottle, so to speak, they become so strong that if you know how to do it you can lift the heaviest weights with them.
“I managed to get hold of a small bottle of the rays” (show bottle) “and I will show you, on a very small scale, how the thing is done.
“First, we will take the pagoda to pieces.”
Standing behind the table, the performer moves the pagoda to the corner of the tray nearest his own left hand; so as to leave space for the different portions when separated. He then picks up all the parts save the base, holding them carefully together, and drawing away with them a length of the thread about equal to the diagonal of the tray. Passing the undermost section downwards along the thread, he lays it down beside the base, afterwards treating the other portions in the same way, the several portions finally resting on the tray somewhat as shown in Fig. 23.
Fig. 23