HERMAN AND THE HUCKSTERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1072, 17 February 1883, Page 1

HERMAN AND THE HUCKSTERS.

Herman looks a good deal like an idealised and humanised Satan. Ue is of the darkest dark brunette, with blazing eyes and the blackest of black hair on his face and head. He dresses in black, the only white showing in his costume being his shirt collar. At the market he ivas at once recognised by the gamins who came trooping after him, and when he stopped at a vegetable dealer’s stall the crowd formed a ring on the outside. * How do you sell these soup bunches V said he picking up a peck measure full of herbs, ‘ Two cents apiece,’ replied the ample matron behind the layout. ‘ That’s cheap,’ said Herman, * very cheap/ and then suddenly looking into the heart of one of the bunches he pulled out a plethoric wad of 20dol hills. The woman made a grab for the money, but as suddenly as it appeared it vanished, and she looked from the bunch to the magician and from the magician to the bunch in a puzzled way. ‘ Go ’way with your foollishness’ she said at last, and declined to be further interested. A couple of stalls below there was a great selection of eggs. These at once caught Herman’s eye. ‘ Are those eggs fresh?’ he inquired of the damsel in charge.

‘ Yes, sir.’ He picked up ui,e and rattled it beside the woman’s oar. She started back at the peculiar metallic sound, whereupon he smiled accusingly at her, broke the egg and took out iwo 5 do] gold pieces laying in the yolk. She stared and he got 10 clols more out of another egg. After collecting about thirty in this way she suddenly declined to have any more eggs broken. As she spoke a blue tongue of flame sprang out of a score of eggs on the tray , and the whole party started back in affright. The flame died away and the woman turned on Herman almost a curse : ‘You are a sorcerer!’ By this time a great throng of people had gathered around, and each new feat of the master was honored by a round of applause. A stall or two lower down Herman picked up a cabbage and asked the man it it was not imprudent to leave his valuables exposed in that way. The man glowered at him, and said he was not there for joking. ‘What will you take for the cabbage ?’ inquired the maestro. ‘ Five cents.’ The money was passed, and the cabbage bee me the property of the magician. T.-dcing a knife, he cut it open and before the astonished gaze of the multiiueD there lay a perfect nest of treasures. Herman deliberately began to fill his pockets first with a wad of bills, a hundred dollar one on the outside, then a gold watch and chain, next two or three diamond rings, and finally a heaping handful of 20do!s gold pieces, and last of all a United States bond for 1,000 dels. Powers of description fail to paint the changes which passed over the huckster’s face face as this find was being appraised, and pouched by the magician. Doubt, fear, avarice, and despair flitted one after another over his countenance. And at last, when the cabbage was evidently empty, he flung himself on the bench behind ths stall and refused to be comforted. ‘That’s a pretty good trade,’said Herand the boys cheered him to the echo. A few paces further on was a game dealer’s stand, and here the miracle of the day was performed. Picking up a rabbit that was laying without any bead on the pavement, Herman asked the man how long it had been dead. ‘ Only a day or two.’ ‘ Smell it,’ said Herman. The reporter sniffed at it, and it certainly was gamey. ‘ Don’t you know how to freshen up animals ?’ said Herman to the man. And he took the rabbit, doubled it up and back, and laid it down on the pavement with a head on it and evidently alive. The dead rabbit at once leaped in among the boys, who chased it and finally brought it back,, in sore need of the kindly magician’s good offices again. Then he took a dove from a cote over the stand, deliberately wrung its neck, pulled off

its head and threw it to the owner, and before he had time to examine it, returned him his pigeon none the worse for wear. By this time the crowd was so large that locomotion was impossible, and with a quizzical glance at his admirers, Herman hurriedly boarded a car and disappeared towards the south.— fjt Louis Post-l)ispatch.