"It certainly seems very beautiful to look at; are there no drawbacks?"
"None," answered the enthusiast. "It's the best profession in the world—there's no danger in it. There's no capital required. All it wants is cleverness. That's why I come to you; because you are a real clever girl, and what's more, you're good-looking—it is not always that looks and brains go together."
"Very well, professor. Let us come to the point—what is it you want me to do?"
"I want you, Miss Kennedy, to go about the country with me. You shall be my assistant; you shall play the piano, and come on dressed in a pink costume—which generally fetches at an entertainment. Nothing to say; and I will teach you by degrees all the dodges, and the way it's done you will learn. You'll be surprised when you find how easy it is, and yet how you can't do it. And when you hear the people telling what they saw, and you know just exactly what they could have seen if they'd had their eyes in their heads, you'll laugh—you will."
"But I'm afraid I can't think——"
"Don't raise difficulties, now," he spoke persuasively. "I am coming to them directly. I've got ideas in my head which I can't carry through without a real, clever confederate. And you must be that confederate. Electricity: now"—he lowered his voice, and whispered—"none of the conjurers have got a battery at work. Think of new feats of marvel and magic never before considered possible; and done secret by electricity. What a shame—what a cruel shame, to have let the world get hold of electricity! Why, it ought to have been kept for conjurers. And telephones—again, what a scope there is in a good telephone! You and me together, Miss Kennedy, could knock up an entertainment as nobody ever yet dreamed of. If you could dance a bit it would be an advantage. But, if you won't, of course, we must give it up. And, as to the dressmaking rubbish, why in a week you will be wondering how in the world you ever came to waste your time upon it at all, while such a chance was going about in the world. Not that I blame you for it; not at all. It was your ignorance kept you out of it, and your good luck threw you in the way of it."
"That may be so. But still, I am not sure——"
"I haven't done yet. Look here! I've been turning the thing over in my own mind a good bit. The only way I can think of for such a girl as you to go about the country with a show is for you to be married to the showman—so I'll marry you before we start, and then we shall be comfortable and happy, and ready for the fortune to come in. And you'll be quite sure of your share in it."
"Thank you, professor."
"Very good, then; no need for thanks. I've got engagements in the country for over three months. We'll marry at once, and you can spend that time in learning."