John Fitzgerald GB 06 Return of by Return of the Great Brain

the steel ring to spin on the steel bar when I count to three and remove my hands and the bandanna handerkerchief. One,
    two, three!”
    On the count of three Tom removed his hands jerking
    the bandanna handkerchief quickly away from the steel bar. I thought my own eyes and the eyes of everybody in the audience were going to pop right out of our heads. The steel ring was around the steel bar and spinning.
    Tom laid the bandanna handkerchief down on the box table. Then he used his own handkerchief to wipe his tore-head. For my money, his whole body should have been wringing wet with sweat after pulling a magic trick like that.
    Danny and Basil were still holding the steel bar. Danny’s left eyelid which was usually half closed was wide open, and so was his mouth. Basil kept blinking his eyes as he stared at the steel bar and steel ring as if he couldn’t believe them. Finally Danny recovered enough to speak.
    “I still don’t believe it,” he said.
    “Examine the steel bar and ring all you want,” Tom
    said.
     
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    Danny let go of the steel liar and removed the ring. He stared at the ring for a moment and then put it in his mouth and bit on it.
    “Ouch!” he yelled.
    Then Basil took the .steel bar and tried to bend it but couldn’t.
    Mr. Smith and Mr. Huddle came up to the box table. They both examined the steel bar and steel ring and then walked back to their seats shaking their heads.
    All of this time the audience had been silent with astonishment. Then somebody began to applaud, and everybody joined in.
    Tom took several bows and then held up his hands for silence. “Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “That concludes Adenville’s first magic show-I can tell from your applause that all of you are satisfied you got your money’s worth.”
    That was a clever thing for Tom to say. A kid who had been applauding and whistling would have to have a coconut for a head to say he wasn’t satisfied and wanted his money back. But I could tell by how excited they looked as they left the barn that they were all more than satisfied. Tom waited until everybody had left except Frankie and me and then counted the money in the cigar box. He had five dollars and forty cents. He gave me the quarter he had promised. But all that money made me a little greedy I guess.
    “That pays me for collecting admissions and introduc-ing you,” I said. “Now how about paying me for acting as your assistant? That ought to be worth another quarter.”
    “You’ve got cabbages in your head,” Tom said. “By rights I should make you pay me for letting you be my assistant. There isn’t a kid in town who wouldn’t have jumped
     
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    at the chance to be my assistant and get to see the show free.”
    I knew he was right. “That is a lot of money for putting on a magic show,” I said. “But I’ll bet the kids would pay even more to see how you did all those tricks.”
    “I thought about doing just that,” Tom said. “But my
    great brain said No.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Yeah, why?” Frankie said.
    “If I showed the kids how the tricks were done,” Tom said, “they would know they had been tricked by sleight of hand. And knowing they had been tricked, some soreheads among them would start yelling I’d swindled them and de-mand their money back. But-as long as they think I performed the tricks by magic none of them can claim they were
    swindled.”
    “But you were just putting on a magic show,” I said.
    “I’ll bet none of the customers at the Salt Lake Theater
    k
    claimed Murdock the Magician had swindled them and demanded their money back.”
    “Murdock the Magician and I are two different people,”
    Tom said. “He is a professional magician. I’m a fellow who must watch his P’s and (?’s with everybody just waiting to
    catch me backsliding.”
    “How about showing Just Frankie and me how you did
    the tricks if we promise never to tell?” I asked.
    “And also us,” Papa’s voice