Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ny ba j ; 42 | . - “Why me? Say, I’m not afraid of hell! You quit your kiddin’! Ive had about enough of this practical jokin’! That tank in the dark was my positively last perform-. ance!” “Listen, old man—we’ve nobody but 6 you,” said Grim. ‘‘You’ve got to carry the big end. All we can do is support you and watch points. You know perfectly well it- would be no use trying to argue with the 2 Jews of this place; we’ve got to show them. = If you prove to them you can handle ee without getting burned and I prove to that they'll all be dead before night Stiles they sit into the game, we can make at least some of them play. It’s the only chance. If you should back down now, ___we’re done for! Go ahead, doc—mix the devil’s undershirt. See that Satan has .hothing on this man when it comes to re squatting on the slag!” “What? Havel got tosit on fire? With- out pants?” “No, not as bad as that.” “‘There’s a word of advice I'll give ye,” said Cameron. “It’s a simple matter to | treat a man’s skin so that he can sit on hot = coals, or walk on them, or take them in his hands. Ye may even put_them in your mouth; but there’s the danger. That’s very dangerous. Ye can treat the inside z of a man’s mouth so that flame won’t hurt ___ it; but ye can’t reach the membrane of the throat or the lungs and I wouldn’t change places with the man who breathed flame inward! “That’s how most of these fire-eaters ye see performing in Cairo and places like that come to a bad end. They don’t die so __ quickly but they’ve time to suffer the agony Of the damned. I’d recommend ye to be very careful. And mind ye, P m not asking what ye’re up to. It’s none o’ my business.” It was a long job squeezing out the juice - Of onions and mixing up the different in- gredients, but Grim and I lent a hand and Cohen watched like a victim getting ready for the stake. He had a feeling, that nobody could blame him for, of being put upon; and his naturally alert business -* instinct made him suspicious of taking what looked like.more than his share of the risk, to say nothing of the physical danger in- volved in fooling with fire. -_ But Grim kept talking to him and did not make the mistake of minimizing what he had to do. He took the other line, making » el ah My . aa Fry, ™ = Wu op * e Wa FA ees 25 18) , . . *, ‘ * : a) ' es Adventure use of rather subtle flattery, saying how lucky we were to have a genuine, sure-fire American Jew to show the CHER crowd of Hebron how to save themselves z But there wasn’t really the least doubt © about Cohen. He would kick and complain for the simple business purpose of empha- sizing his stake in the proceedings; that much was second nature. And he was certainly afraid; but so was I, and I don’t think Grim felt any too confident under his mask of cool amusement. But if Grim had told Cohen he was slated for sure death, though he would have argued the point undoubtedly, I’m pretty sure he would have gone ahead. As a matter of faet, none of us was fooling himself very seriously about the chance of | surviving that night’s work. The prospect was too slim altogether. There were too - many opportunities for a slip, however carefully and cunningly Grim might stage- manage the affair. Besides, we had not yet converted the OrthodoxsJews of Hebron to our plan; and to lift up a mountain by the roots and plant it in the sea might prove not -much more difficult than to persuade those frozen-souled conservatives. It was best not to try to imagine what might happen if we were detected playing tricks with Moslem prejudices—as might easily turn out. The Sheikh of the mosque, ° for instance, might turn cold at the last — minute and denounce us as the best way out of his own predicament. But Cohen was finally stripped to the waist to an accompaniment of joshing, and every inch of his skin was covered carefully with the preparation. Then that was allowed to dry and the whole performance was repeated, until at last Cameron pro- nounced him fire-proof from the waist . upwards. But he doubted it volubly, until Grim struck a match and made the first test, holding the flame against his body in a dozen places without producing the least sensation. After that it was vaudeville. Cohen’s “spirits rose and his imagination with them. He staged a whole performance, and bally-_ hooed it in the bargain like a small-town circus side-show performer. “Ladies and gents, you mayn’t believe it, but the guy who ought to spill the talk for me is sick. After my performance at the last town I was red-hot and he feared I’d set the'bed on fire. So he took a bucket (eCo) book