instructions to arrange for a similar 'sell' on the following Monday
evening in that charming village.

I was sufficiently busy during the interval that lay between this and
Saturday evening in rehearsing my part for the entertainment thus
advertised. I was not entirely free from doubts of the success of a
'take-in' so palpable and ridiculous, and even if a house-full of
numbsculls _should_ gather, I deemed the experiment a dangerous one for
me; but my editorial friend took the risk, remarking that he had
calculated his chances, and knew what he was about. Nevertheless, it
was not without some trepidation that I entered Grecian Hall by the
private door, at a little before seven o'clock, and laid my hat behind
the temporary curtain that had been erected for the accommodation of the
great Humbug Troupe. Applying my eye to a chink in the cloth, I
perceived that the hall was crowded to suffocation. My editorial friend
sat in a prominent position near the stage, and the audience was
manifesting those signs of impatience which seem to be equally orthodox
among the news-boys in the pit of the old Bowery Theatre and the coarse
young rustics who go to 'shows' in the back villages of ruraldom. I
tinkled a bell. The uproar grew quiet. I drew aside my curtain, and made
my bow, amid the silent wonderment of my auditors. Then I said:--

'Ladies and gentlemen: You now see before you the redoubtable Fantadimo
Fantodimus, master of ceremonies for the Great Humbug Troupe. You also
see before you, ladies and gentlemen, Mons. Belitz, the renowned
magician, Mademoiselle Heliotrope, the graceful danseuse, Signor
Strawstekowski, Herr Balamsass; and, in short, ladies and gentlemen, you
see before you the sum and substance of the Great Humbug Troupe, as it
exists in all its original splendor. We salute you!