Freddy the Magician

by Walter R. Brooks

  “Cyprinoid,” put in Mr. Groper.

  “And then,” continued the sheriff, “out comes Zingo and hands Ollie the bill and he says: ‘Just receipt this for me, Mr. Groper.’

  “‘Yeah?’ says Ollie. ‘Why?’ Or some good long words to that effect.

  “‘Because,’ says Zingo, ‘if’ twas to get around that folks found things like that in the food, there ain’t anybody that would stay at this hotel.’ ‘Well, Ollie knew Zingo had put the minnow in the milk himself, all right, but he couldn’t prove it, and if it was get out it would be awful bad for business. So he receipted the bill. But that night he give Zingo notice to leave.

  “And the next morning Zingo finds a live treetoad in his orange juice, and he goes to Ollie and says he’s going to sue the hotel.

  And the next morning Zingo finds a live treetoad in his orange juice.

  “Well, what can Ollie do? He has to let him stay. And every time he says anything about the bill, Zingo pulls some such stunt. Last night there was a traveling man named Giblet or some such name having his supper in the dining room, and Zingo stops at his table and says excuse me and picks a couple of them fuzzy caterpillars off the edge of his plate, and Giblet jumps up and grabs his bag and beats it.

  “OK, you got any ideas?”

  “Why, good gracious,” said Freddy, “no, not at the moment. But let’s see—today’s Thursday—there’s five days before Zingo’s show. Now if I could stay at the hotel as a guest those five days … How about it, Mr. Groper? It would give me a chance to make my own preparations for Zingo’s show, and I’m pretty certain we could find some way of getting rid of him for you.”

  “The benefits of such a plan seem highly problematical,” said Mr. Groper. “Your features being recognizably porcine, and this necromancer bein’ a perspicacious individual and fully cognizant of same, I’d say we’d become involved in unpredictable eventualities terminating in a highly detrimental denouement, catastrophic in its scope.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Jinx with a grin.

  But Freddy said: “I guess you mean he’d recognize me. But I’d be in disguise of course.”

  Mr. Groper fired a string of polysyllables which Freddy took to mean that he didn’t think any disguise would work, but the sheriff reassured him. Freddy, he said, was a master of disguise. “You remember that time,” he said to Freddy, “when you wore that old-fashioned sailor suit that used to belong to Mr. Bean, and you stayed here for weeks and nobody knew you? Why, I believe that suit’s still here. You could be Ollie’s nephew, come for a visit.” He glanced from the pig to Mr. Groper and back again; there certainly was a sort of family resemblance between them, though he didn’t say so. “Wait; I’ll get it.”

  Freddy was a little thinner that summer than he had been on the previous occasion when he had worn the suit. They didn’t have to tug so hard to get him into it. And Mr. Groper was much impressed. There was even, he said, a distinct resemblance to his brother Mervyn’s boy, Marshall.

  “Fine,” said the sheriff. “You’ll give out that Marshall has come to visit you. You better go right over to the hotel now and get settled.”

  But Freddy said he wouldn’t be able to until later in the day. There were a number of arrangements to be made at the farm, and of course he would have to get Mr. Bean’s permission. So they shook hands all around, and then Freddy and Jinx left.

  They were too busy when they got home to make much of a search for Minx, who had apparently really disappeared during their absence. Nobody had seen her for some time. But there was nothing to worry about. She could take care of herself, and she would find out soon enough that she wasn’t really invisible. So they put Zingo’s hat back in the bank vault, guarded by the two rabbits, and went ahead with their plans and interviews. And late in the afternoon they hitched up Hank and drove down to Centerboro again.

  Chapter 12

  Disguised as Marshall Groper, Freddy walked into the hotel lobby. He hadn’t worn the sailor suit after all. For one thing, it was fifty years behind the style, and for another, Freddy felt that he looked foolish in it. Which of course he did. So he went into the Busy Bee Department Store and bought an Indian suit, complete with feathered war bonnet and fringed leggings and maybe he looked foolish in that too, but the war bonnet was certainly a good idea, for it partially concealed the feature that was most likely to give him away—his long nose.

  Nobody paid any attention to the rather stout little boy in the Indian suit who put his suitcase down by the desk and was warmly greeted by Mr. Groper. He was shown up to a room which Mr. Groper said was “contiguous to that currently occupied by Signor Zingo.” Freddy had brought a small dictionary along, for he thought it might be useful in his conversations with his new uncle, and he got it out of the suitcase and found what contiguous meant.

  Then he unpacked the suitcase and I guess a lot of people would have been surprised to see what was in it. There were four mice in it, for one thing, and they were pretty cross, for they had been shaken up quite a lot when the porter had carried the bag upstairs. Jinx was in it, too, and there were some tools (for burgling operations), and a couple of spare disguises, and a notebook and pencil (in case Freddy felt like poetry), and some magic apparatus, and a toothbrush, and a lot of other things. And the last thing Freddy took out was a small box in which were his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, the spiders. Freddy let them out right away, and they went for a walk on the ceiling to stretch their legs.

  As soon as he had got things unpacked and put neatly away in bureau drawers, Freddy gave his friends their instructions. He could hear Signor Zingo moving around in the next room, so he was careful to speak very low. There was a locked door between the two rooms, and he set the mice to work gnawing a hole in the lower corner. Then after the Webbs were rested, he had them try the keyhole. But the key was in it on the other side and they couldn’t get through.

  “Maybe his window’s open,” said Mr. Webb. “If you’ll put up this window I’ll walk across and see.” So Freddy opened the window, and in a few minutes Mr. Webb came back. Freddy put his ear down close to the spider. “Shut,” said Mr. Webb. “But he’s there. Practicing card tricks in front of the mirror. And Presto’s asleep on the bed.”

  “OK,” said Freddy. “Boys,” he said to the mice, “you’re making an awful racket with that gnawing. Maybe you’d better lay off until Zingo goes down to supper.”

  The mice stopped working. “Freddy thinks, we’re too gnawsy,” said Eek, and they all laughed uproariously. Though of course there wasn’t much uproar—only squeaks.

  Freddy went down early to supper. He wanted to get into the dining room before Zingo did. He sat with Mr. Groper at a table in a corner with his back to the rest of the room. But the magician, when he came in, walked straight over to their table.

  “Ah, Mr. Groper,” he said, “I see you have company. Present me to your little guest.”

  Mr. Groper said: “Signor Zingo—Marshall Groper, consanguineous with me on the paternal side, him being offspring of my fraternal relative.”

  “Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” said the magician, and held out his hand. “How do you do, Marshall?”

  “I do all ride, thag you,” said Freddy in a stuffed-up voice, and sniffed. He pretended to have a cold to disguise his voice. He didn’t shake hands, and Zingo drew his hand back and put it in his pocket.

  “You don’t seem very glad to see me,” he said. “I guess you don’t know who I am, do you, Marshall?”

  “Sure,” said Freddy; “I doe who you are, you’re the bagiciad that do’d ever pay by uggle adythig.”

  Zingo pretended that he hadn’t understood. “I don’t ever what? Has the boy got an impediment in his speech?” he asked Mr. Groper.

  Mr. Groper started to say something, but Freddy said: “I guess you’ve got an impediment in your pocketbook, haven’t you?” Only of course all his m’s were b’s, and all his n’s were d’s. When you read it you can hold your n
ose and it will sound the way it did when Freddy said it.

  “Dear me,” said Zingo, “what a rude little boy!” He stared distastefully at Freddy who was trying to keep his face turned away. “And why, Mr. Groper, do you let him come to the table with a false face on?”

  “Gee, I wonder if he has recognized me!” Freddy thought. “I guess I’d better get rid of him.” He said in a loud voice: “I should think you’d be ashamed to come in this dining room, when you don’t ever pay your hotel bill!”

  Everybody in the dining room stared, and Mr. Groper said: “Ain’t you being a little contumelious, Marshall?”

  Signor Zingo smiled his tight smile and put a hand on Freddy’s shoulder. “Oh, come, my little man,” he said, and pinched the shoulder viciously.

  Freddy gave a loud squeal and wriggled away. “He pinched me!” he squalled. “The big bully!” And he began to cry.

  Signor Zingo took his hand away quickly. He looked around at the other diners with raised eyebrows. Everyone glared, and a voice said: “Shame!”

  “Aw, I never touched the big baby!” said Zingo; then he shrugged and went on to his table, where he sat with his back to Freddy, fingering his moustache.

  Freddy felt that he had made a good beginning. Zingo’s temper had betrayed him, and the story of how he had maltreated a child would go all over town, for a number of Centerboro business men had witnessed the performance. As a disguise, the Indian suit had been a good idea. And the war bonnet was the best part of it, for it was built up with a circle of eagle feathers around the head and a long tail of eagle feathers down the back, and so when people looked at it they just looked at the headdress and not so much at the face under it. That was probably the reason why nobody recognized Freddy, or saw that the face under the war bonnet was a pig’s and not a little boy’s.

  After dinner Freddy went up to his room. The mice had gnawed through the door, and had gone into Zingo’s room, but they hadn’t been able to look around much because Presto was still there. The Webbs, however, had gone in, and had spun themselves a little hammock up in a corner of the ceiling where they could sit comfortably and see and hear everything that went on. For the moment there wasn’t anything to be done, so Freddy took off his war bonnet, got out his pencil and paper, and settled down to a little poetry. This is what he wrote:

  O the swallows fly about the sky,

  And they swoop among the trees,

  And they catch small bugs in their little mugs

  And swallow them down with ease.

  It’s fun, no doubt, to whirl about

  In a swift and airy jig;

  But as for me, I’d much rather be A pig.

  The rabbit, at night, when the moon is bright,

  Waits till it’s nearly dawn;

  Then out he hops, with his friends plays cops

  And robbers upon the lawn.

  It’s fun, I suppose, to wriggle your nose

  And live on a lettuce diet;

  But it’s not my dish, and I wouldn’t wish To try it.

  O cats are slim and full of vim

  And they stay out late at night;

  They’re merry blades, who sing serenades

  On the fence, by the moon’s pale light.

  It may be fun to wash with your tongue

  And sing like the late Caruso,

  But I’ll tell you square, I wouldn’t care To do so.

  Now take the pig. His brains aren’t much big–

  ger than cats’ or swallows’ or rabbits’,

  But in debate his words carry weight,

  And he’s formed very regular habits.

  Pigs know all the answers; they’re conceded as dancers,

  To be light as a bird on a twig.

  So it mustn’t gall you if people call you A pig.

  He was polishing up the last two stanzas, which seemed to have too many words in them, though he heartily concurred in the sentiments expressed, when Mr. Webb crawled up over the edge of the paper and began waving his feelers to attract his attention.

  “News for you, Freddy,” said the spider. “Minx has just called on Zingo. She’s told him that his hat was in the bank—our bank, I mean—and he’s getting ready to go out there and break into the bank and get it.”

  “Wow!” said Freddy, jumping up, and the poem fell unnoticed to the floor. It was later picked up by the chambermaid, who was so impressed by the lazy happy life led by pigs that she cried for several days because she couldn’t be one.

  Jinx and the mice, who had been asleep on the bed, jumped up too, and they crowded around Mr. Webb to hear his story. Minx had wanted to get back at Freddy for the trick he had played on her, so she had told Signor Zingo that his magic hat was in the First Animal Bank.

  “But I know that,” Zingo had said. “Presto saw it there.”

  “But you don’t know how to get it,” Minx said.

  No, the magician had said; he didn’t. He understood the place was guarded night and day. And he wasn’t going to give Freddy any hundred and thirty dollars for its return.

  So Minx said she knew how to get in, and if he’d take her out there she’d help him get it.

  “Well, come on,” said Freddy. “What are we waiting for?”

  “You can’t beat them to it,” said Mr. Webb. “He’s getting ready to leave now, in his car.”

  “Then so are we,” Freddy said. “Come on, Jinx. You others stay here.”

  “Watch out for Zingo,” said Mr. Webb. “He’s got a pistol.”

  They hustled down the back stairs and into the garage, and when a few minutes later Minx and Zingo came out and got into the car, the two animals were already in it, huddled together under a rug in the back seat.

  As soon as they were out of town Zingo stepped on the accelerator and the car bounded swiftly up the road to the Bean farm. And Freddy and Jinx bounded with it. Freddy had thought that he could think up a plan of action on the way out, but he was too busy hanging on, and keeping from being smothered under the rug and being clawed by Jinx, to do much connected thinking. Jinx of course couldn’t see anything, and to keep from being thrown about and bruised, he dug his claws into whatever was handy, and as Freddy was a good deal handier than anything else he dug them into Freddy. Freddy said afterwards that if he could have squealed it would have been much easier.

  Zingo drove beyond the Bean farm, turned around, and then drove back and stopped the car a little beyond the bank. He and Minx got out and Minx said: “If you cut that bell rope high up, next to the clapper, then if the guards get away from us they can’t reach it to ring the alarm.” And before Freddy and Jinx got disentangled and out of the car, they heard Zingo open the bank door.

  “Darn it!” said Jinx disgustedly. “Are we stuck or are we stuck?”

  “Yeah,” said Freddy. “We can’t capture him now. But wait! Help me get this rug out and up to where they climbed the fence.”

  There was commotion in the bank and a flashlight flickered through the window as they dragged the rug up to the rail fence. Freddy whispered his instructions, and then they waited. Pretty soon the beam of the flashlight shot down towards them and was then shut off, and they heard Zingo’s footsteps. He climbed the fence cautiously and behind him a little black shadow leaped to the top rail. But as it jumped down, Freddy, with the rug spread out, fell upon it. There was a great scrabbling and thrashing as Freddy struggled to pin Minx down and wind her in the rug.

  “What’s the matter?” Zingo whispered. “Don’t make so much noise!” He stopped and directed the flashlight back at the sound, but Jinx stepped forward into the light.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Put out that light! I just bumped my nose in the dark.”

  Of course all cats look alike at night, and even in the daytime it wasn’t easy to tell Jinx and Minx apart. Jinx was all black, while Minx had a white chest and white forepaws. But Zingo didn’t notice the difference. “Well, come along,” he said.

  By the time they reached the car, Freddy had Minx well
wound up in the rug, and her squalls were so muffled that nobody could hear them a few feet away. He tucked her under one arm, climbed the fence, and hid behind the bank.

  Just as Zingo, with his magic hat on his head, was getting into the car, Jinx said: “Say, look! while we’re here, why don’t we take all the money that’s in the bank vaults?”

  “What money?” said Zingo.

  “Why, Freddy keeps all his money there—and he made a lot last year with the circus. Mr. Bean has some money deposited there, too. And all the other animals. I bet there’s more than a thousand dollars.”

  “Go on!” said Zingo incredulously. “You mean all that money is in an unprotected hole in the ground under that trapdoor? You’re kidding me.”

  “But I’m not,” said Jinx. “Oh well, go on if you want to. I’m not going to let this chance go,” and he started back.

  Zingo hesitated a moment, then he followed. As soon as they were in the bank, Freddy crept around to the door. Zingo lifted the trap, and the rabbits, whom he had shoved down into the vaults on his previous visit, and who had been ineffectually banging on the under side of the floor in the hope that someone would hear them, skittered off down the underground passage.

  “Better let me get it,” said Jinx. “That passage is a tight squeeze for you, and it goes quite a way before you get to the room where the money is.”

  “No doubt,” said Zingo suspiciously. “But I prefer to go myself. Just in case,” he said with his thin smile, “there’s another way out. You might get mixed up and go out the other end with the money.”

  Jinx knew that there wasn’t any other way out, but he tried to look disconcerted, as if he had really intended to sneak off with the money. So he held up the trapdoor and Zingo crawled down the passage. And as soon as the magician’s feet had disappeared, he slammed down the door with a bang, and Freddy rushed in and they piled all the furniture in the bank on top of it. And Freddy added his weight by sitting down in one of the chairs, while Jinx rushed out to climb the tree from which the bell hung, to give the alarm.