Chapter XI

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."