IV


AN IDEAL IDOL


_A Chapter Devoted to the Proposition that All Mankind Are Born of Woman_

He began by suddenly filling the air with canary birds; they flew and
chirped and fluttered about her head, until, bewildered, she shrank back,
almost frightened at the golden hurricane.

To reassure her he began doing incredible things with the big silver
hoops, forming chains and linked figures under her amazed eyes, although
each hoop seemed solid and without a break in its polished circumference.
Then, one by one, he tossed the rings up and they vanished in mid-air
before her very eyes.

"How did you do that?" she cried, enchanted.

He laughed and produced the big, white Persian cats, changed them into
kittens, then into birds and butterflies, and finally into a bowl full of
big, staring goldfish. Then he picked up a ladle, dipped out the fish,
carefully fried them over an electric lamp, dumped them from the smoking
frying pan back into the water, where they quietly swam off again,
goggling their eyes in astonishment.