ut if it don't work, you get
killed! Go to it, if you can do it! Say, how do you charm a thing,
anyway?"

"That's easy. You jus' look 'em in the eye and kinda whistle a little
tune, and keep on lookin' 'em in the eye and gettin' closer and closer,
and pretty soon without their knowin' what you're doin' at all--why,
they're all charmed! But if they get on that you're charmin' 'em!
Wow!--Then look out!"

Gizzard was greatly interested in the occult art. "How can you tell when
you're done?" he asked eagerly.

[Illustration]

"I'll show you!" Sube bent over Gyp the Blood and gazed steadily into
the brightly gleaming eyes. Meanwhile he had begun to whistle a little
tune strangely reminiscent of the Streets of Cairo. But Gyp the Blood
did not easily succumb to hypnotic suggestion. He continued to growl
peevishly and lashed the floor with the loose end of his tail. Closer
and closer bent Sube. The growling diminished. Then it ceased
altogether. The distance between the eyes of the boy and the eyes of the
cat became a matter of inches. Then there was a terrific snarl!

Sube fell over on his back howling with pain and holding both hands to
his nose.

"It's jus' like charmin' snakes," remarked Gizzard as he struggled to
control his laughter. "It's all right if it works!" Then, catching sight
of Sube's nose, he exclaimed, "Gee! He handed you a good one on the
nose! Hurt much?"

"No, not much," Sube prevaricated, for he considered the admission of
pain unethical for all save girls and cry-babies. "But I know how to do
it now!"

"How to hypnotize 'im?"

"Don't get cute, now! No; how to get him out of that net. We'll put 'im
in the cage net and all, and then while you hammer on the box and poke
'im with a stick I'll hook the net with a piece of wire and yank like
Holy Moses!"

And it was done. And in less than two hours from the time of his
capture, Gyp the Blood was safe behind the bars. But his fiery spirit
was far from subdued. His eyes glowed as fiercely as before, and his
blasphemous growling was none the less continual.

During the afternoon two more victims were brought in, and the Big Game
establishment of Cane & Tobin began to sound like something. The
necessity of a commissary department was also discovered. Plates and
saucers were easy enough to purloin, but very hard to fill three times a
day.

On account of the lack of confidence usually displayed by parents in the
mercantile ventures of their sons, mos