--improvements which soon enlarged the bowl of wine to a barrel, and
made the one bottle hold it all and yet remain empty to the last.

When the astrologer reached the market-square he went straight to a
juggler, fantastically dressed, who was keeping three brass balls in the
air, and took them from him and faced around upon the approaching crowd
and said: "This poor clown is ignorant of his art. Come forward and see
an expert perform."

So saying, he tossed the balls up one after another and set them whirling
in a slender bright oval in the air, and added another, then another and
another, and soon--no one seeing whence he got them--adding, adding,
adding, the oval lengthening all the time, his hands moving so swiftly
that they were just a web or a blur and not distinguishable as hands; and
such as counted said there were now a hundred balls in the air. The
spinning great oval reached up twenty feet in the air and was a shining
and glinting and wonderful sight. Then he folded his arms and told the
balls to go on spinning without his help--and they did it. After a
couple of minutes he said, "There, that will do," and the oval broke and
came crashing down, and the balls scattered abroad and rolled every
whither. And wherever one of them came the people fell back in dread,
and no one would touch it. It made him laugh, and he scoffed at the
people and called them cowards and old women. Then he turned and saw the
tight-rope, and said foolish people were daily wasting their money to see
a clumsy and ignorant varlet degrade that beautiful art; now they should
see the work of a master. With that he made a spring into the air and
lit firm on his feet on the rope. Then he hopped the whole length of it
back and forth on one foot, with his hands clasped over his eyes; and
next he began to throw somersaults, both backward and forward, and threw
twenty-seven.