you? But you need not pick at the table that way. You get no
more grain, but only this little tap. Ha, ha! What are you
coming to? There is a chicken barely feathered enough for us to
tell what color he is going to be.

"Another tap will take still more of the conceit out of him.
Look at him! There are his pin-feathers, and his bare spots.
Don't try to get away; I can easily tap you again. Now then.
Here is a lovely little chick, fluffy with yellow down. He is
active enough, but I shall quiet him. One tap, and now what do
you see? A poor, feeble chicken, scarcely able to stand, with
his down all packed close to him as if he had been out in the
rain. Ah, little chick, I will take the two halves of the egg-
shell from which you came, and put them on each side of you.
Come, now get in! I close them up. You are lost to view. There
is nothing to be seen but a crack around the shell! Now it has
gone! There, my friends; as I hold it on high, behold the magic
egg, exactly as it was when I first took it out of the box, into
which I will place it again, with the cloth and the wand and the
little red bag, and shut it up with a snap. I will let you take
one more look at this box before I put it away behind the scenes.
Are you satisfied with what I have shown you? Do you think it is
really as wonderful as you supposed it would be?"

At these words the whole audience burst into riotous
applause, during which Loring disappeared, but he was back in a
moment.

"Thank you!" he cried, bowing low, and waving his arms before
him in the manner of an Eastern magician making a salaam. From