more to describe. He was not at all a grand conjurer,
he was only a poor common juggler, exhibiting his tricks in the public
streets many times in the day for the few small coins which the
bystanders chose to give him. He was a very merry fellow, and all the
time he was about his performance he kept making fun and jokes; and
these amused the audience so much that you may believe that I was sorry
my ignorance of his language hindered me from understanding them.

"All sorts of people used to stop and look at the juggler: brawny
porters, with loads of merchandise, or boxes of tea, or bars of silver,
which they carried in boxes or baskets slung on bamboo poles over their
shoulders."

"Like the pictures on the tea-boxes," whispered little Bessy.

"There's a figure of it in the grocer's window," said her brother, who
had seen more of the world than Bessy; "not a picture, a figure dressed
in silk; and they're square boxes, not baskets, that he's got--wooden
panniers I call them."

"Who else used to stop, Cousin Peregrine?" asked Maggie.

"Street confectioners, Maggie, with small movable sweetmeat stalls,
which they carry on their backs. Men with portable stoves too, who
always have a cup of tea ready for you for a small coin worth about the
twentieth part of a penny. Tiny-footed women toddling awkwardly along,
with children--also cramp-footed--toddling awkwardly after them, dressed
in all the colours of the rainbow, and with their poor little arms stuck
out at right angles with their bodies, to help them to keep their
balance. Even the blind beggars, who go along striking on a bell to let
people know that they are blind, as otherwise they might be knocked
over, even they used to stop and listen to my juggler's jokes, though
they could not see his tricks.

"All this was in the street; but sometimes I got him to come into my own
courtyard to do his tricks there, that I might watch him more carefully.
But watch as I might, I could never see how he did this particular
feat. He used to do it with no clothes on except a pair of short
trousers, for in the hot season, you must know, the lower classes of
Chinese go about naked to the waist. Indeed, hot as it is, they don't
wear hats. The juggler possessed both a hat and a jacket, as it
happened, but he took them off when he did his trick."

"And what _was_ the trick?" asked several impatient voices. "What did he
do?"

"He used to swallow ten or twelve needles one after the oth