DEVLIN PERFORMS SOME WONDERFUL TRICKS, FASCINATES MR. LEMON, AND
STRIKES TERROR TO THE SOUL OF FANNY LEMON.
"That very night Mr. Devlin come down to this room, without 'with your
leave or by your leave,' where Lemon and me was setting, having our
regular game of cribbage for a ha'penny a game, and droring a chair up
to the table, he begun to talk as though he'd known us all his life.
And he can talk, sir, by the hour, and it never seens to tire him,
whatever it does with other people. Lemon was took with him, and
couldn't keep his eyes off him. No more could I, sir. No more could
you if he was here. You might try your hardest, but it wouldn't be a
bit of good. There's something in him as forces you to look at
him--just as there's something in that bird, and the stone figger on
the mantelshelf, and Lemon's portrait as forces you to look at _them_.
I've found out the reason of that. When Devlin ain't here _he leaves
his sperrit behind him_--that's how it is. I was never frightened of
the dark before he come into the house, but now the very thought of
going into a room of a night without a candle makes me shiver. And
many and many's the time as I've been going up-stairs that I've turned
that faint there's no describing. He's been behind me, sir, coming up
after me, step by step. I can't see him, I can't hear him, but I feel
him; and yet there ain't a soul in sight but me. At them times I'm
frightened to look at the wall for fear of seeing his shadder.
"Well, sir, on the night that he come into this parlour he goes on
talking and talking, and then proposes a hand at cribbage, which Lemon
was only too glad to say yes to.
"'Mrs. Lemon must play,' said Devlin; 'we'll have a three-handed
game.'
"I shouldn't have minded being left out, especially as our
cribbage-board only pegs for two, but his word was lore. So we begun
to play, and Devlin marks his score with a red pencil.
"The things he did while we played made my flesh creep. He threw out
his card for crib without looking at it, and told us how much was in
crib while the cards was laying backs up on the table; and when Lemon
and me, both of us slow counters, began to reckon what we had in our
hands, Mr. Devlin, like a flash of lightning, cried out how many we
was to take. We played five games, and he won 'em all. Then he said
he'd show us some tricks. Sir, the like of them tricks was never seen
before or since. I've seen conjurers in my time, but not one who could
hold a candle to Mr. Devlin. He made the cards fly all over the room,
and while he held the pack in his hand and you was looking at 'em,
they'd disappear before your very eyes.
"'Where would you like 'em to be?' he asked. 'Underneath you, on your
chair? Git up; you're sitting on 'em. In your workbox? Open it and
behold 'em.'
"And there they was, sir, sure enough, underneath me, though I'd never
stirred from my seat, or in my workbox, which was at the other end of
the room. It wasn't conjuring, sir, it was something I can't put a
name to, and it wasn't natural. I could hardly move for fright, and as
I looked at Mr. Devlin, he seemed to grow taller and thinner, and his
black eyes become blacker, and his moustaches curled up to his nose
till they as good as met. But Lemon didn't feel as I felt; he was that
delighted that he kep on crying--
"'Wonderful! Beautiful! Do it agin, Mr. Devlin, do it agin. Show us
another.'
"I don't know when I've seen him so excited; that Devlin had bewitched
him.
"'We're brothers you and me,' said Devlin to him. 'I am yours, and you
are mine, and we'll never part.'
"The very words, sir, he'd used to me.
"'Hooray!' cried Lemon, 'we're brothers, you and me, and we'll never,
never part.'
"'I once kep a barber's shop myself,' said Devlin.
"'What!' cried Lemon, 'are you one of us?'
"'I am,' said Devlin, 'and I've worked for the best in the trade--for
Truefitt and Shipwright, and all the rest of 'em. I've been abroad
studying the new styles. I'll show you something as 'll make you open
your eyes, something splendid.'
"And before I knew where I was, sir, Devlin, in his shirt-sleeves, had
whipped a large towel round my neck, and had my hair all down, and was
beginning to dress it. Where he got the towel from, and the combs, and
the curling-tongs, and the fire, goodness only knows. I didn't see him
take them from nowhere, but there they was on the table, and there was
Devlin, with his hands in my hair, frizzling it up and corkscrewing
it, and twisting and twirling it, and me setting in the chair for all
the world as if I'd been turned into stone. But though I didn't have
the power to move, I could think about things, and what come into my
head was that the man as had taken the second floor front must be some
unearthly creature, sprung from I won't mention where.
"'Do you really believe so?' whispered Devlin in my ear.
"'Believe what?' I asked, though my throat was that hot and dry that I
wondered how he could make out what I said.
"'That I am an unearthly creature,' he said softly, 'sprung from a
place which shouldn't be mentioned to ears perlite?'
"If I was petrified before, sir, you may guess how I felt when I found
out that he knew what I was thinking of.
"'You shouldn't be, you shouldn't be,' he whispered agin.
"'Shouldn't be what?' I managed to git out, though the words almost
stuck to the roof of my mouth.
"'Sorry you ever took me as a lodger,' he said with a grin. 'Fye, fye!
It isn't grateful of you after sech a good reference as I give you.
Something 'll happen to you if you don't mind.'
"Well, sir, it was true I'd thought it, but I'll take my solemn oath I
never spoke it. It was jest as though that Devlin had my brains spread
open before him, and could see every thought as was passing through
'em. I was so overcome that I as good as swooned away, and I believe I
should have gone off in a dead faint if he hadn't put something strong
to my nose as made me almost sneeze my head off. And while I was
sneezing, there was Devlin and Lemon laughing fit to burst
theirselves. All the time he was dressing my hair that sort of thing
was going on; there wasn't a thought that come into my head that he
didn't tell me of the minute it was there, till he got me into that
state that I hardly knew whether I was asleep or awake. At last, sir,
he finished me up, and stepping back a little, he waved his hand and
said to Lemon,
"'There! what do you think of that?' meaning my hair.
"'Wonderful! Beautiful!' cried Lemon, clapping his hands and jumping
up and down in his chair, he was that egscited. 'I never saw nothing
like it in all my whole born days. It's a new style--quite a new
style, and so taking! The ladies 'll go wild over it. Where did you
git it from?'
"'From a place,' said Devlin, grinning right in my face, 'as shall be
nameless.'
"'But you'll tell me some day, won't you?' cried Lemon. 'Because there
might be other styles there as good as that, and we could make our
fortunes out of 'em.'
"'I'll take you there one day,' said Devlin, with an unearthly laugh,
'and you shall see for yourself.'
"'Do, do!' screamed Lemon. 'I'd give anything in the world to go there
with you!'
"'Good Lord save him!' I thought, looking at Lemon whose eyes was
almost starting out of his head. 'He's going mad, he's going mad!'
"'As to making our fortunes,' Devlin went on, 'why not? It shall be
so.'
"'It shall, it shall!' cried Lemon.
"'We'll make hunderds, thousands,' said Devlin.
"'We will, we will!' cried Lemon. 'Fanny shall ride in her own
kerridge.'
"'Fanny shall,' said Devlin.
"'The Lord forbid,' I thought, 'that I should ever ride in a kerridge
bought at sech a price!'
"I thought more free now that Devlin's hands was not in my hair; he
didn't seem to be able to read what I was thinking of so long as we
was apart.
"'I bind myself to you,' said Devlin to my poor dear Lemon, 'and you
bind yourself to me. The bargain's made. Your hand upon it.'
"Lemon gave him his hand, and whether it was fancy or not, it seemed
to me that Devlin grew and grew till he almost touched the ceiling;
and that, while he was bending over Lemon and looking down on him,
like one of them vampires you've read of, sir. Lemon kep growing
smaller and smaller till he was no better than a bag of bones.
"'We go out to-morrer morning,' said Devlin, 'you and me together, to
look for a shop. Is it agreed?'
"'It is,' answered Lemon, 'it is.'
"'We will set London on fire,' said Devlin.
"'We will, we will,' said Lemon; 'and we'll have shops all over it.'
"'You're a man of sperrit,' said Devlin. 'I kiss your hand.'
"He said that to me; but I clapped my hands behind my back.
"'If you refuse,' said Devlin, smiling at me all the while, 'I must
show Lemon another style.'
"And he made as though he was about to dress my hair agin.
"'No, no!' I screamed; 'anything but that, anything but that!"
"I give him my hand, and he kissed it. His mouth was like burning hot
coals, and I wondered I wasn't scarred.
"'Don't forgit,' said Lemon, 'to-morrow morning.'
"'I'll not forgit,' said Devlin. 'Till then, adoo.'
"The next minute he was gone.
"No sooner did he close the door behind him than I felt as if tons
weight had been lifted off me. I started up, and put my hands to my
hair, intending to pull it down.
"'What are you doing?' cried Lemon, starting up too, and seizing hold
of me. 'Don't touch it--don't touch it! I must study the style. I
never saw sech a thing in all my life. It's more than wonderful, its
stoopendous. You look like another woman. Jest take a sight of yerself
in the glass.'
"I did take a sight of myself in the glass, and if you'll believe me,
sir, it seemed as if my head was covered with millions of little
serpents, curling and twisting all sorts of ways at once; and, as I
looked at 'em moving, sir--which might have been or might not have
been, but so it was to me--I saw millions of eyes shining and glaring
at me.
"'O, Lemon, Lemon!' I cried, bursting out into tears; 'what _have_ you
done, what _have_ you done?'
"'Done?' said Lemon, rubbing his hands; he'd let mine go. 'Why, gone
into partnership with the finest hairdresser as ever was seen. Our
fortune's made, Fanny, our fortune's made!'
"I tried to reason with him, but I might as well have spoke to stone.
He was that worked up that he wouldn't listen to a word I said. All
the satisfaction I could git out of him was--
"'A good night's work, Fanny; a good night's work!'
"If he said it once he said it fifty times. But I knew it was the
worst night's work Lemon had ever done, and that it'd come to bad. And
it has, sir."