242 THE LAST DAY AT CHEE-IIA. 



ber seeing one of these men plying his trade in the 

 open streets of Paris, in front of the Madeleine, in 

 1855, the year of the Great Exhibition. He had 

 bought from the authorities, the right to use a little 

 recess of the public court for the exhibition of his 

 sleights. His compensation was the few coppers 

 tossed him by the passers-by, as they stopped to 

 witness his exhibition. He began by spinning a 

 pewter platter on the top of a round stick, and toss- 

 ing it in the air, then catching it again on the top 

 of his stick ; then he spun and tossed a second, and 

 a third, and kept them all three spinning ; then 

 passed the stick under one leg, then behind his 

 back ; then poised it on his chin, and still kept 

 catching and spinning them at pleasure, without 

 baulk or accident. Then he spun a copper, and 

 tossed it up ; then caught that on his round, short 

 staff; and so on with another, until he seemed to 

 exert the same mastery over these small bodies as 

 he had already done over the larger; and con- 

 cluded, after keeping them playing a long time in 

 the air, by making them descend and lodge in his 

 waistcoat pocket, without the assistance of his 

 hands ! In witnessing these and other feats of this 

 expert professor of legerdemain, I became ashamed 

 that I had ever prided myself on my accuracy of a 

 shot ; since the highest precision which an amateur 



