Still, after all, he, Stuhk, was the discoverer, the
theatrical Columbus who had had the courage and the vision.
A now-hallowed attack of tonsilitis had driven him to Florida, where
presently Gideon had been employed to beguile his convalescence, and
guide him over the intricate shallows of that long lagoon known as the
Indian River in search of various fish. On days when fish had been
reluctant Gideon had been lured into conversation, and gradually into
narrative and the relation of what had appeared to Gideon as humorous
and entertaining; and finally Felix, the vague idea growing big within
him, had one day persuaded his boatman to dance upon the boards of a
long pier where they had made fast for lunch. There, with all the
sudden glory of crystallization, the vague idea took definite form and
became the great inspiration of Stuhk's career.
Gideon had grown to be to vaudeville much what _Uncle Remus_ is to
literature: there was virtue in his very simplicity. His artistry
itself was native and natural. He loved a good story, and he told it
from his own sense of the gleeful morsel upon his tongue as no
training could have made him.
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