Stranger in a Strange Land

in the back of the crowd. "Catch!"
                He turned away and did not seem to notice that the egg never reached its destination.
                Dr. Apollo performed several other tricks, while wearing always the same slightly puzzled expression and with the same indifferent patter. Once he called a young boy close to the platform. "Son, I can tell you what you are thinking. You think I'm not a real magician. And you're right~ For that you win a dollar." He handed the kid a dollar bill. It disappeared.
                The magician looked unhappy. "Dropped it? Well, hang on to this one." A second bill disappeared.
                "Oh, dear. Well, we'll have to give you one more chance. Use both hands. Got it? All right, better get out of here fast with it-YOU should be home in bed anyhow." The kid dashed away with the money and the magician turned back and again looked puzzled "Madame Merlin, what should we do now?"
                His pretty assistant came up to him, pulled his head down by one ear, whispered into it. He shook his head. "No, not in front of all these people."
                She whispered again; he looked distressed. "I'm sorry, friends, but Madame Merlin insists that she wants to go tobed. Will any of you gentlemen help her?"
                He blinked at the rush of volunteers- "Oh, just two of you. Were any of you gentlemen in the Army?"
                There were still more than enough volunteers. Dr. Apollo picked two and said, "There's an army cot under the end of the platforms just lift up the canvas_flow, will you set it up for her here on the platform? Madame Merlin, face this way, please."
                While the two men set up the cot, Dr. Apollo made passes in the air at his assistant. "Sleep ... sleep . . you are now asleep. Friends, she is in a deep trance. Will you two gentlemen who so kindly prepared her bed now place her on it? One take her head, one take her feet. Careful, now-" In corpselike rigidity the girl was transferred to the cot.
                "Thank you, gentlemen. But we ought not to leave her uncovered, should we? There was a sheet here, somewhere. Oh, there it is." The magician reached out, recovered his wand from where he had parked it, pointed to a table laden with props at the far end of his platform; a sheet detached itself from the pile and came to him. "Just spread this over her. Cover her head, too; a lady should not be exposed to public gaze while sleeping. Thank you. Now if you will just step down off the platform. Fine! Madame Merlin . . . can you hear me?"
                "Yes, Doctor Apollo."
                "You were heavy with sleep. Now you are resting. You feel lighter, much lighter. You are sleeping on a bed of clouds. You are floating away on clouds-" The sheet-covered form raised slowly up about a foot. "Wups! Don't get too light. We don't want to lose you."
                In the crowd, a boy in his late teens explained in a loud whisper, "She's not under the sheet now. When they put the sheet over her, she went down through a trap door. That's just a light framework, doesn't weigh as much as the sheet. And in a minute he'll flip the sheet away and while he does, the framework will collapse and disappear. It's just a gimmick -- anybody could do it,"
                Dr. Apollo ignored him and went on talking. "A little higher, Madame Merlin. Higher. There-" The draped form floated about six feet above the platform.
                The smart youngster whispered to his friends, "There's a slender steel rod but you can't see it too easily. It's probably where one corner of the sheet hangs down there and touches the cot."
                Dr. Apollo turned and requested his volunteers to remove the cot and put it back under the platform. "She doesn't need it now. She sleeps on clouds." He faced the floating form and appeared to be listening. "What? Louder, please. Oh? She says that she doesn't want the sheet-it's too heavy."
                ("Here's where the framework disappears.")
                The magician tugged one corner of the sheet, snatched it away; the audience hardly noticed that the sheet disappeared without his bothering to gather it in; they were looking at Madame Merlin, still floating, still sleeping, six feet above the platform. The platform stood in the middle rear of the tent and the