At this point there was a slight commotion in the closely packed crowd in front of Zodono. A giant darky gorgeously dressed was pressing himself to the front. It was Conko Mukes.
His manner and speech, as he pushed aside both whites and blacks, were the very apotheosis of deference and courtesy:
“’Scuse me, boss! Beg parding, kunnel! Fer Gawd’s sake, don’t lemme disturb you-alls! Gotter git to de drug-sto’ prompt, cap’n. Please, suh, let a po’ mis’ble nigger git by fer de white folks’ med’cine. Thank ’e, suh, de Lawd is shore gwine bless you fer dis nigger’s sake.”
By the time Conko Mukes was within four feet of the box on which Zodono stood, the professor had resumed his speech and the crowd had forgotten the interruption. Mukes stopped where he was and listened.
“Every positive character in the world has this power of hypnotism over every negative character,” the professor proclaimed. “It is the simple power of mind over mind by suggestion--all of which I shall prove to you to-night at the opera-house for a few nickels admission--price, fifteen and twenty-five cents!”
At this point one of the professor’s assistants walked toward the box, his feet dragging and moving as if some one had him by the shoulders, leading him forward. His thin arms dangled at his sides, and his bony fingers twitched and writhed like the tail of a snake.
He climbed upon the box with awkward movements as if the joints of his shoulders and hips were stiff and the hinges rusty, and they hurt him.
He walked slowly, reluctantly toward Zodono, and the professor threw up his hand, snapped his fingers, and cried “Stop!”
The assistant flinched, dodged like a dog, and the crowd snickered.
“My Gawd!” Conko Mukes mumbled in a low tone. “Look at dat!”
For a moment the professor glared in the eyes of his assistant; then his hands began making slow, stroking motions downward before the subject’s face. Red spots came and went in the bleached cheeks of the hypnotic; his breath was short and quick; his nostrils and lips were pinched.
The crowd looked on breathlessly as the hand of the professor, fingers outstretched, clawed the air before that weak, chalky face, with its twitching lips and feeble, trembling chin.
“Ah!” the professor exclaimed theatrically, grinning his triumph in the face of the crowd.