Show MAGICIANS STORY united states minister moran provo himself a veritable jonah kellar the magician has pretty thoi covered the globe in his travels and has coma out safe and sound says writer in the new york mail he says ho never met with but one accident in all his wanderings but that one experience was queer enough he thinks to make up for the lack of many others he tells the story in this ivay it was something like ten or twelve years ago that I 1 left lisbon portugal one fine summer morning on a steamer bound for southampton tho steamer was one of the on the line the weather was particularly pleasant and every body was figuring on a speedy and enjoyable run before we bad been out of lisbon many hours I 1 found that benjamin moran the united states minister to portugal was a passenger on the steamer mr moran introduced trod himself to me and on the strength of our both being americans and in the company of a lot of portuguese and foreigners we speedily struck up an acquaintance after chatting on various subjects and exchanging experiences we fell to incidental talking about the prospective voyage I 1 said something about the pleasant trip I 1 expected but moran laughingly checked me with the words mr kellar we are doomed to meet with an accident though he said it with a smile there was a trace of seriousness in his manner and I 1 asked him what he meant he replied that he bad never mae a single trip by rail or water that he could remember without meeting with some unexpected delay or accident some of the machinery in the locomotive had broken down or the train bad been derailed or somebody had been run over or the ships shaft had broken or the vessel had been wrecked 1 I am a veritable jonah he added with a laugh and just as sure as you and I 1 are talking here on this deck this ship will meet with an accident and mv rec ordwell stand unbroken I 1 tried to laugh away this superstition but lie have it and persisted in his alarming prophesy you may not believe what I 1 tell you but on my honor the sky clouded up within three hours after my conversation with mr moran a fog spread over the water and early in the evening the steamer ran her nose on a ledge of rocks and hung fast she bung there with her bow in the air just long enough for the passengers to clamber down on to the reef and then with a lurch backwards she ran off the rocks and sank in more than one hundred fathoms of water we had a tough time of it that night on the rocks but the next morning the weather cleared and we were picked up by a passing steamer nobody was injured but ever since that trip I 1 have always had a dislike for traveling with onah |