The Philipsburg mail., 1899-11-17
THE WONDERFUL WIZARD,
His Very Good Reason For Quitting
the Show Business.

The street fakir who sold perfect pa
nacea for every pain on the street was
resting between his afternoon and even
Ing services and was doing a little talk
ing in retrospect.
Il wasn't always in this business" he
said, "for my real taste was in the dra-
matte line, and l made my first appear
ance as Wezzoosk, the Wonderful Wiz
ard, doing my act under a roof and Oh
real stage, or as often that way as the
towns struck were fixed for it. don't
know that l made any more money than
in the present line, but I was in love
with my art, and could afford to make
less. What is money to man welded
to his art?" And the late wizard laid
his hand on his bosom and looked up at
the ceiling.
"But was not to be permitted to fol-
low the inclinations Of my nature" he
went on. 1T is nearly always so, you
know, in the higher walks of life, in the
purely ideal, as it were One Of my acts
indeed the star turn of the whole
layout-was the famous gun act in which
let any person in the audience shoot Mt
me from the rear end of the hall, and l
caught the bullet in my teeth and spat it
out in plate, entirely unharmed It had
always been so successfully performed
that l had fallen in love with it and made
1t the grand finale of the show.
"One night in Kentucky town, where
there were a lot of men who were crack
shots, l made such success that was
asked to give another performance the
next night, and, fattered by the atten-
came around, TALL slab sided man said
ho world 1i.o +o CHI %bo
perfectly willing that he should do so,
and after carefully loading the weapon
in the sight of the audience, letting one
and all see that put the bullet into the
gun and rammed it hard home-it was
the ramming, you know, that smashed
the bullet, made for the purpose, and
rendered it into harmless dust-I handed
it to him and took my place to receive
his shot. At the command he fired, and
as he did so | thought somebody had
stuck a redhot poker through my ear,
and clapped my hand to my head and
took it away covered with blood. The
curtain went down with rush, and
took faint for the next Is minutes.
When l came to, the tall man was stand
ing in the crowd around me.
Here, stranger, he said, sticking a
$40 bill into my hand, 4 guess you've got
a right to that much anyhow. You see,
bet Judge Jones $50 could plug you
through the ear, and done it easy. You
ought to be glad we didn't bet on your
windpipe er yer spinal colyum.'
"Of course he had slipped buller in
on me, and being crack shot, it didn't
turn out so bad, but the more thought
Of it the more I felt like not giving some
awkward chap a chance to gamble in
that same way, and cut the act out.
But the people wouldn't have me without
it, so gave up the whole thing and took
up my present line. ashington Star.
M. Poubelle and the Pope's Ode.
An anecdote is told in The Phoenix
about Nj. Poubelle, the diplomat, who
was such a favorite at the Vatican when
he was there as French ambassador.
When he first arrived in 1896, he met
with very cool reception, but he deter
mined to win the pontiff's heart at any
price. So he set to work to learn an ode
which Leo XIII had just composed apro-
pos of the festival at Reims, entitled
"Ad Gallos." He found it very difficult
and as he feared he might forget it the
ingenious idea entered his head of past
Ing it into the inside OF his hat.
At the next audience with the pope
Poubelle craftily brought round the con.
versation to the poetic ability Of his holt
ness and promptly began to quote 4
passage from the ode. Leo XIII listen.
ed, delighted, and Poubelie felt he had
scored. Suddenly he began to blunder
and the pope saw that he did not under
stand single word of what he was re-
citing. He cast despairing glances at his
hat, but the thread was lost. However,
the humor of the situation so tickled the
pope's fancy that Mgr. Poubelle was
henceforth prime favorite with the su-
preme pontiff.