But whenⒶ we got there I saw that 44 was not minded to pray, but was full of other and temporalⒶ interests. I was shocked, and deeply concerned; for I felt rising in me with urgencyⒶ a suspicion which had troubled me several times before, but which I had ungently put from me each time—that he was indifferent to religion. I questioned him—he confessed it! I leave my distress and consternation to be imaginedⒶ, I cannot describe them.

In that paralysing moment my life changed, and I was a different being; I resolved to devote my life, with all the affections and forces and talents which God had given me to the rescuing of this endangered soul. Then all my spiritⒶ was invaded and suffused with a blessed feeling, a divine sensation, which I recognized as the approval of God. I knew by that sign, as surely as if He had spoken to me, that I was His appointed instrument for thisⒶ great work. I knew that He would help me in it; I knew that whenever I should need light and leading I could seek it in prayer, and have it; I knew—

“I get the idea,” said 44, breaking lightly in upon my thought,Ⓐ “it will be a FirmⒶⒶ, with its headquarters up there and its hindquarters down here. There's a duplicate of it in every congregation—in every family, in fact. Wherever you find a warty little devoteeⒶ who isn't in partnership with God—as he thinks—on a speculation to save some little warty soul that's no more worth saving than his own, stuff him and put him in the museum, it is where he belongs.”

“Oh, don't say such things, I beseech you! They are so shocking,

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and so awful. And so unjust; for in the sight of God all souls are precious, there is no soul that is not worth saving.”

But the words had no effect. He was in one of his frivolous moods, and when these were upon him one could not interest him in serious things.Ⓐ For all answer to what I had been saying, he said in a kindly but quite unconcerned way that we would discuss this trifle at another time, but not now. That was the very word he used; and plainly he used it without any sense of its gross impropriety. Then he added this strange remark—

“For the moment, I am not living in the present century, but in one which interests me more, for the time being. You prayⒶ, if you like—never mind me, I will amuse myself with a curious toy if it won't disturb you.”

He got a little steel thing out of his pocket and set it between his teeth, remarking “it's a jew's-harpⒶ—the niggers use it”—and began to buffet out of it a most urgent and strenuous and vibrant and exceedingly gay and inspiriting kind of music, and at the same time he went violentlyⒶ springing and capering and swooping and swirling all up and down the room in a way to banish prayer and make a person dizzy to look at him; and now and then he would utter the excess of his joy in a wild whoop, and at other times he would leap into the air and spin there head over heelsⒶ for as much as a minute like a wheel, and so frightfully fast that he was all webbed together and you could hear him buzz. And he kept perfect time to his music all the while. It was a most extravagant and stirring and heathenⒶ performance.

Instead of being fatigued by it he was only refreshed. He came and sat down by me and rested his hand on my knee in his winningⒶ way, and smiled his beautiful smileⒶ, and asked me how I liked it. It was so evident that he was expecting a compliment, that I was obliged to furnish it. I had not the heart to hurt him, and he so innocently proud of his insane exhibition. I could not expose to him how undignified it was, and how degrading, and how difficult it had been for me to stand it through; I forced myself to say it was “ideal—more than ideal;” whichⒶⒶ was of course a perfectly meaningless phrase, but he was just hungry enough for a compliment to

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make him think this was one, and also make him overlook what was going on in my mind; so his face was fairly radiant with thanks and happiness, and he impulsively hugged me and said—

“It's lovely of you to like it so. I'll do it again!”

And at it he went, God assoil him,Ⓐ like a tempest. I couldn't say anything, it was my own fault. Yet I was not reallyⒶ to blame, for I could not foreseeⒶ that he would take that uninflamed compliment for an invitation to do the fiendish orgy over again. He kept it up and kept it up until my heart was broken and all my body and spiritⒶ so worn and tired and desperate that I could not hold in any longer, I had to speak out and beg him to stop, and not tire himself so. It was another mistake; damnation, he thought I was suffering on his account!Ⓐ so he piped out cheerily, as he whizzed by—

“Don't worry about me; sit right where you are and enjoy it, I can do it all night.”

I thought I would go outⒶ and find a good place to die, and was starting, when he called out in a grieved and disappointed tone—

“Ah, you are not going, are you?”

“Yes.”

“What for?Ⓐ Don't go—please don't.”

“Are you going to keep still? Because I am not going to stay here and see you tire yourself to death.”

“Oh, it doesn't tire me in the least, I give you my word. Do stay.”

Of course I wanted to stay, but not unless he would sit down and act civilized, and give me a rest. For a time he could not seem to get the situation through his head—for he certainly could be the dullest animal that ever was, at times—but at lastⒶ he looked up with a wounded expression in his big soft eyes, and said—

“August, I believe you do not want any more.”

Of course that broke me all down andⒶ made me ashamed of myself, and in my anxiety to heal the hurt I had given and see him happy again I came within a hair's breadth of throwing all judgment and discretion to the winds and saying I did want more. But I did not do it; the dread and terror of what would certainly follow, tied my tongue and saved my life. I adroitly avoided a direct answerⒶ to what he had said, by suddenly cryingⒶ “ouch!” and grabbing at an

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imaginary spider inside my collar, whereupon he forgot his troubles at once in his concern for me. He plunged his hand in and raked it around my neck and fetched out three spiders—real ones, whereas I had supposed there was none there but imaginary ones. It was quite unusual for any but imaginary ones to be around at that time of the year, which was February.Ⓐ

We had a pleasant time together, but no religious conversation, for whenever I began to frame a remark of that color he saw it in my mind and squelched it with that curious power of his whereby he barred from utterance any thought of mine it happened to suit him to bar. It was an interesting time, of course, for it was the nature of 44 to be interesting. Pretty soon I noticed that we were not in my room, but in his. The change had taken place without my knowing when it happened. It was beautiful magic, but it made me feelⒶ uneasy. Forty-Four said—

“It is because you think I am traveling toward temptation.”

“I am sure you are, 44. Indeed you are already arrived there, for you are doing things of a sort which the magician has prohibited.”

“Oh,Ⓐ that's nothing! I don't obey him except when it suits me. I mean to use his enchantments wheneverⒶ I can get any entertainmentⒶ out of them, and whenever I can annoy him. I know every trick he knows, and some that he doesn't know. Tricks of my own —for I bought them; bought them from a bigger expert than he is. WhenⒶ I play my own, he is a puzzled man, for he thinks I do it by his inspiration and command, and inasmuch asⒶ he can't remember furnishing either the order or the inspiration, he is puzzled and bothered, and thinks there is something the matter with his head. He has to father everything I do, because he has begun it and can't get out of it now, and so betweenⒶ working his magic and my own I mean to build him up a reputation that will leave all other second-class magiciansⒶ in the shade.”

“It's a curious idea. Why don't you build it up for yourself?”

“I don't want it. At home we don't care for a small vanity like that, and I shouldn't value it here.”

“Where is your ho—”Ⓐ

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It got barred before I could finish. I wished in my heart I could have that gorgeous reputation which he so despised! But he paid no attention to the thought; so I sighed, and did not pursue it. Presently I got to worrying again, and said—

“Forty-FourⒶ, I foresee that before you get far with the magician's reputation you will bring a tragedy upon yourself. And you are so unprepared. You ought to prepare, 44, you ought indeed; every moment is precious. I do wish you would become a Christian; won't you try?”

He shook his head, and said—

“I should be too lonesome.”

“Lonesome? How?”

“I should be the only one.”Ⓔ

I thought it an ill jest, and said so. But he said it was not a jest—some time he would go into the matter and prove that he had spoken the truth; at present he was busy with a thing of “importance”Ⓐ—and added, placidly, “I must jack-up the magician's reputation, first.” Then he said in his kindest manner—

“You have a quality which I do not possess—fear. You are afraid of Katzenyammer and his pals, and it keeps you from being with me as much as you would like and as I would like. That can be remedied, in a quite simple way. I will teach you how to become invisible, whenever you please. I will give you a magic word. Utter it in your mind, for you can't do it with your tongue, though I can. Say it when you wish to disappear, and say it again when you wish to be visible again.”

He uttered the word, and vanished. I was so startled and so pleased and so grateful that I did not know where I was, for a moment, norⒶ which end of me was up; then I perceived that I was sitting by the fire in my own room, but I did not know how I got there.

Being a boy, I did what another boy would have done: as long as I could keep awake I did nothing but appear and disappear, and enjoy myself. I was very proud, and considered myself the superior of any boy in the land; and that was foolish, for I did not invent the

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art, it was a gift, and no merit to me that I could exercise it. Another boy with the same luck would be just as superior as I was. But these were not my thoughts, I got them later, and at second hand—where all thoughts are acquired, 44 used to say. Finally I disappeared and went to sleep happy and content, without saying one prayer for 44, and he in such danger. I never thought of it.