[The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins]@TWC D-Link bookThe Moonstone CHAPTER X 16/27
The chief Indian laid his hand humbly on his breast, and said a second time that the juggling was over. The little boy went round with the hat.
The ladies withdrew to the drawing-room; and the gentlemen (excepting Mr.Franklin and Mr. Murthwaite) returned to their wine.
I and the footman followed the Indians, and saw them safe off the premises. Going back by way of the shrubbery, I smelt tobacco, and found Mr. Franklin and Mr.Murthwaite (the latter smoking a cheroot) walking slowly up and down among the trees.
Mr.Franklin beckoned to me to join them. "This," says Mr.Franklin, presenting me to the great traveller, "is Gabriel Betteredge, the old servant and friend of our family of whom I spoke to you just now.
Tell him, if you please, what you have just told me." Mr.Murthwaite took his cheroot out of his mouth, and leaned, in his weary way, against the trunk of a tree. "Mr.Betteredge," he began, "those three Indians are no more jugglers than you and I are." Here was a new surprise! I naturally asked the traveller if he had ever met with the Indians before. "Never," says Mr.Murthwaite; "but I know what Indian juggling really is.
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