“If you ’ad been,” said the old man, with a sigh, “I should ha’ asked you to ha’ done something useful. Gin’rally speaking, conjurers do things that are no use to anyone; wot I should like to see a conjurer do would be to make this ’ere empty mug full o’ beer and this empty pipe full o’ shag tobacco. That’s wot I should ha’ made bold to ask you to do if you’d been one.”
The traveller sighed, and, taking his short briar pipe from his mouth by the bowl, rapped three times upon the table with it. In a very short time a mug of ale and a paper cylinder of shag appeared on the table before the old man.
“Wot put me in mind o’ your being a conjurer,” said the latter, filling his pipe after a satisfying draught from the mug, “is that you’re uncommon like one that come to Claybury some time back and give a performance in this very room where we’re now a-sitting. So far as looks go, you might be his brother.”
The traveller said that he never had a brother.
We didn’t know ’e was a conjurer at fust, said the old man. He ’ad come down for Wickham Fair and, being a day or two before ’and, ’e was going to different villages round about to give performances. He came into the bar ’ere and ordered a mug o’ beer, and while ’e was a-drinking of it stood talking about the weather. Then ’e asked Bill Chambers to excuse ’im for taking the liberty, and, putting his ’and to Bill’s mug, took out a live frog. Bill was a very partikler man about wot ’e drunk, and I thought he’d ha’ had a fit. He went on at Smith, the landlord, something shocking, and at last, for the sake o’ peace and quietness, Smith gave ’im another pint to make up for it.
“It must ha’ been asleep in the mug,” he ses.
Bill said that ’e thought ’e knew who must ha’ been asleep, and was just going to take a drink, when the conjurer asked ’im to excuse ’im agin. Bill put down the mug in a ’urry, and the conjurer put his ’and to the mug and took out a dead mouse. It would ha’ been a ’ard thing to say which was the most upset, Bill Chambers or Smith, the landlord, and Bill, who was in a terrible state, asked why it was everything seemed to get into his mug.
“P’r’aps you’re fond o’ dumb animals, sir,” ses the conjurer. “Do you ’appen to notice your coat-pocket is all of a wriggle?”