Stage Magician

The Amazing Harvey and Wanda, Children's Parties a Specialty, had both been struck down by an unexpected tummy bug, but by a providential turn of fortune a replacement had turned up, practically out of the blue. A stage magician.

Everyone has his little hobby. Despite Crowley's urgent advice, Aziraphale was intending to turn his to good use

Aziraphale was particularly proud of his magical skills. He had attended a class in the 1870s run by John Maskelyne, and had spent almost a year practicing sleight of hand, palming coins, and taking rabbits out of hats. He had got, he had felt at the time, quite good at it. The point was that although Aziraphale was capable of doing things that could make the entire Magic Circle hand in their wands, he never applied what might be called his intrinsic powers to the practice of sleight-of-hand conjuring.

Which was a major drawback. He was beginning to wish that he'd continued practicing.

Still, he mused, it was like riding a velocipede. You never forgot how. His magician's coat had been a little dusty, but it felt good once it was on. Even his old patter began to come back to him.

The children watched him in blank, disdainful incomprehension. Behind the buffet Crowley, in his white waiter's coat, cringed with contact embarrassment.

"Now then, young masters and mistresses, do you see my battered old top hat? What a shocking bad hat, as you young'uns do say! And see, there's nothing in it. But bless my britches, who's this rum customer? Why, it's our furry friend, Harry the rabbit!"

"It was in your pocket," pointed out Warlock. The other children nodded agreement. What did he
think they were? Kids?

Aziraphale remembered what Maskelyne had told him about dealing with hecklers. "Make a joke of it, you pudding-heads-and I do mean you, Mr. Fell" (the name Aziraphale had adopted at that time),

"Make 'em laugh, and they'll forgive you anything!"

"Ho, so you've rumbled my hat trick, " he chuckled. The children stared at him impassively.

"You're rubbish," said Warlock. "I wanted cartoons anyway."

"He's right, you know," agreed a small girl with a pony tail. "You are rubbish. And probably a faggot." Aziraphale stared desperately at Crowley. As far as he was concerned young Warlock was obviously infernally tainted, and the sooner the Black Dog turned up and they could get away from this place, the better.

"Now, do any of you young'uns have such a thing as a thruppenny bit about your persons? No, young master? Then what's this I see behind your ear . . . ?”

***

Good Omens - Wednesday