set up behind it. The professor, a springy man with a waxed mustache and a receding hairline hidden under a leghorn hat, had just produced a fat Red Eagle cigar from a pocket in his coat when Lloyd strode up.
“What happened to your monkey?” the boy wanted to know.
“Why?” queried the professor, lighting the cigar with a crack of his fingers. “Would you like to apply for the position?”
“That was good.” Lloyd grinned, mimicking the finger snap.
“Prestidigitation, my boy. Legerdemain. I do three shows a day and you’re welcome to see one, if you would be so kind as to bring along your parents or guardians as paying customers. The Bible says blessed are they who pay in cash.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lloyd objected.
“Mine does,” the showman replied, tipping his hat to a woman with a rustling bustle who shuffled by. “But never fear, the instance of instantaneous combustion you have just witnessed was a complimentary sample—gratis, without obligation; in other words, free of charge. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“You didn’t say what happened to the monkey,” Lloyd pointed out, reaching for the man’s coat sleeve as he tried to turn away toward the tent.
“No,” agreed the professor, wheeling back and chomping on his cigar. “I have neglected to fulfill your request for further intelligence and so have left you in a state of sustained bewonderment and speculation. And there you shall remain. I have work to do.” Once again he made a move toward the tent pitched beside the wagon, nodding at a man with a thimble hat who ambled past with a frown of suspicion on his face.
“Is he dead?” Lloyd asked, refusing to budge.
“As a matter of fact, poor little Vladimir was consumed by some sort of cave lion during our recent sojourn in Kentucky,” the professor announced, glaring down at the boy. “Most distressing. Now, if you’ll excuse me!”
“Did you shoot the cave lion?” Lloyd inquired.
“Go home, young lad!” The professor waved. “I must prepare. Magic doesn’t just happen!”
“I thought that was exactly what it did,” Lloyd replied. “That’s why it’s magic.”
“Touché,” the showman retorted, appearing to bow, but really examining the boy’s sorry excuse for footwear, which confirmed his initial impression. “But if I were truly a master of the art,” he continued, “then I would wave the wand of this cigar and you would disappear—back to wherever it was you came from.”
“Zanesville,” Lloyd supplied. “Ohio. I saw you there.”
“Aha,” the professor returned, his eyes following a blooming lass with a rose-hips complexion, who giggled behind a handkerchief as she passed. “Where on earth did you say your parents were?”
“I have neglected to fulfill your request for further intelligence regarding that,” Lloyd answered.
“Touché again, my effervescent little friend. But circumstances beyond my control, otherwise known as life, require that I spin gold from straw, separate wheat from chaff—in a word, earn my daily bread. Now please, leave me to my fate as I bid you goodbye and good luck with your own.” He gave the boy a hearty pat on the head, the universal sign of condescension in adults toward children—and one that he felt certain this particular child could not fail to comprehend.
“And what about the pretty lady?” the boy asked. “Did a cave lion get her, too?”
“Boy! I am going to perform some magic on you yet if you don’t move on!” This time the showman took a decisive step away, prepared to fend off the lad with an elbow if necessary.
“Do you still sell the powder made from tiger penis?” Lloyd asked.
This inquiry caught the professor by surprise, and was made at too loud a volume for his liking. He glanced around, thinking, Damn this boy. What he said aloud was “Shush, please! Here, my friend. Come now. Take this delightful toy as a token of my exasperation and carry on.”
The medicine man produced from inside his coat a sheet of heavy paper neatly folded into the shape of a bird, which he un-creased, and adjusted, and then lofted into the air. The flat wings carried the construction several feet toward a scowling lady who was hawking carrots.
“Now, go and collect that novelty and it is yours to have, without payment or condition, save that you leave me to the tasks at hand!”
Lloyd scoffed at this offer but went and retrieved the paper bird—and then whistled at the showman, who, in spite of himself, spun around.
Lloyd then tilted both wings upward and sent it soaring over the head of the carrot woman, where