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A certain drawing in the series depicts "The Equilibrist" an individual with an anxious eye, who is poised upon a slack wire above the head of an admiring assistant, balancing sundry cigar-boxes and wine-glasses on one toe, while supporting on his head a lighted lamp, and discoursing sweet music from a mandoline.
He was laboring over a gigantic treadmill, balancing like an equilibrist upon a revolving sphere. Well, it was a simple matter to stop walking, sit down, and allow himself to be spun backward around to the place where Rosa was waiting. He pondered this idea for some time, until its absurdity became apparent.
For the unusual cold and the night work together had betrayed him into potations even beyond his wont, the slippery pavements had proven very baffling to his dignified tread and the snowy signet upon the back of his topcoat spoke to a delighted office all too plainly that at last the alcoholic equilibrist par excellence had fallen.
Through my open door I could see water swashing up and down the hall, while half a foot of water creamed and curdled from under my bunk across the floor each time the ship rolled to starboard. The steward brought me my coffee, and, wedged by boxes and pillows, like an equilibrist, I sat up and drank it.
Or merely a feint to thrill us? the feint of an equilibrist so secure that he can pretend to lose his balance? If I knew why Brett ceased to be butler in that household, I might be in less doubt as to the true inwardness of him. I knew only that he was gone. That was fully ten years ago. Since then I have had one glimpse of him. This was on a summer night in London.
In the ruins of Herculaneum there is still visible a picture representing an equilibrist executing several different exercises, especially one in which he dances on a rope to the tune of a double flute, played by himself.
"Sometimes the subjects lean backward with all the grace of a perfect equilibrist, freeing themselves from the ordinary mechanical laws. The curvature will, indeed, at times be so complete that the head will touch the floor and the body describe a regular arc.
Comet-like, he was destined to appear, flash brightly, then disappear below the horizon of this tale. Mr. Cady greeted Bob with listless enthusiasm, teetering the while upon his cane like a Japanese equilibrist. "Haven't seen you for ages," he began. "Been abroad?"
This person gave exhibitions of wonderful magnetic power, and invited the inspection and discussion of medical men. Besides her chief accomplishment she possessed wonderful strength and was a skilled equilibrist. By placing her hands on the sides of a chair upon which a heavy man was seated, she would raise it without apparent effort.
How I respected that man! What study had gone to the perfection of that act, and the others that he equally made nothing of! He was simply billed as 'Equilibrist, when his name ought to have been blazoned in letters a foot high if they were in any wise to match his merit.