Therefore he wrote to strangers on a purely business basis—­to amazing types lately emerged from the submerged, bulging with coal money, steel money, copper money, wheat money, stockyard money—­types that galloped for Fifth Avenue to build town houses; that shook their long cars and frisked into the country and built “cottages.”  And this was how he put it: 

“Madam: In case you desire to entertain guests with the professional services of a magician it would give me pleasure to place my very unusual accomplishments at your disposal.”

And signed his name.

It was a dreadful drain on his bank account to send several thousand engraved cards about town and fashionable resorts.  No replies came.  Day after day, exhausted with the practice drill of his profession, he walked to the Park and took his seat on the bench by the bridle path.  Sometimes he saw her cantering past; she always acknowledged his salute, but never drew bridle.  At times, too, he passed her in the hall; her colorless “Good morning” never varied except when she said “Good evening.”  And all this time he never inquired her name from the hall servant; he was that sort of man—­decent through instinct; for even breeding sometimes permits sentiment to snoop.

For a week he had been airily dispensing with more than one meal a day; to keep clothing and boots immaculate required a sacrifice of breakfast and luncheon—­besides, he had various small pensioners to feed, white rabbits with foolish pink eyes, canary birds, cats, albino mice, goldfish, and other collaborateurs in his profession.  He was obliged to bribe the janitor, too, because the laws of the house permitted neither animals nor babies within its precincts.  This extra honorarium deprived him of tobacco, and he became a pessimist.

Besides, doubts as to his own ability arose within him; it was all very well to practice his magic there alone, but he had not yet tried it on anybody except the janitor; and when he had begun by discovering several red-eyed rabbits in the janitor’s pockets that intemperate functionary fled with a despondent yell that brought a policeman to the area gate with a threat to pull the place.

At length, however, a letter came engaging him for one evening.  He was quite incredulous at first, then modestly scared, perplexed, exultant and depressed by turns.  Here was an opening—­the first.  And because it was the first its success or failure meant future engagements or consignments to the street, perhaps as a white-wing.  There must be no faltering now, no bungling, no mistakes, no amateurish hesitation.  It is the empty-headed who most strenuously demand intelligence in others.  One yawn from such an audience meant his professional damnation—­he knew that; every second must break like froth in a wine glass; an instant’s perplexity, a slackening of the tension, and those flaccid intellects would relax into native inertia.  Incapable of self-amusement, depending utterly upon superior minds for a respite from ennui, their caprice controlled his fate; and he knew it.