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WOES OF A WIZARD
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WOES OF A WIZARD
BY
DAVID DEVANT
(Managing Partner of Maskelyne & Cookes Provincial Company)
LONDON
S. H. BOUSFIELD & CO., Ltd.
NORFOLK HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, W.C.
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TO MY FRIEND
JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE
THE MASTER OF MY CRAFT
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P R E F A C E
OMETIMES, when the work has been
finished and we have been sitting round
the fire, some of my friends have been kind
enough to be interested at hearing me relatemy experiences. It has been suggested to
me that these true tales which amused my
friends might also interest the public. I can
only hope that the man who put that idea
into my head knows the public. If my little book helps anyone to pass an hour away
pleasantly, I shall be well satisfied.
D. D.
Hillside,
Belsize R oad, Hampstead.
July 1903 .
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
9
19
27
39
49
67
THE GREAT COURT CONJURER
CHAPTER II
THE HOT PUDDING
CHAPTER III
OTHER PEOPLE’S WOES
CHAPTER IV
PISTOL STORIES
CHAPTER V
DEADHEADS
CHAPTER VI
THE LADY WHO WOULD NOT VANISH
CHAPTER VII
THE MAN WHO MAKES MONEY 78
7
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8 Contents
PAGECHAPTER VIII
SOME QUEER REQUESTS
CHAPTER IX
CONFEDERATES AND MESMERISTS 97
CHAPTER X
A REAL ROMANCE 113
CHAPTER XI
A FEW PUPILS 126
CHAPTER XII
MINOR WOES 135
CHAPTER XIII
MY NOTE BOOK
151
CHAPTER XIV
SELLS 162
CHAPTER XV
SOME COMPENSATIONS 173
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WOES OF A WIZARD
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT COURT CONJURER
HE only lessons in conjuring that I ever
received were obtained in rather a curious
way. I came across a man who was giving
conjuring and second-sight performances in a
small shop in Islington. The price of admission
was a penny, and even then business was not
always good. In order to stimulate the curiosity
of those who hung about outside the shop door,
the conjurer would occasionally emerge from
the shop and give a free show on the pavement. His usual plan was to produce money
from the whiskers of benevolent old gentle
men, from babies’ feeding bottles; in fact,
from any place where money is not usually to
be found. The conjurer once made the fatal9
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12 Woes of a Wizard
Court Conjurer had been very interested in
watching him while he sketched. I wishedthat there might be no misunderstanding betweenthe Great Court Conjurer and myself, so I went
back to him and asked him what he meant by“ giving the whole game away."
"Why, I’ll teach yer all the bloomin’ tricksthere ever was, is, or could be,” he said."All those I’ve seen you perform?” I asked
eagerly." Yes,” he replied, “ all of ’em, and a lot
more.”
I was so delighted at the prospect of learningthe complete art of conjuring (I have since dis-covered that one has never learnt all there is tolearn about conjuring) that I rushed off at onceto my artist friend, and begged him to begin a
picture there and then. I forget what I promisedhim for his work, but I know that he consideredthe sum insufficient. He pointed out that bysimply putting his brush on a small canvas afew times he was going to make my fortune.Therefore, I ought to pay handsomely.
“ You may be quite sure,” he said, "that aman like your friend the conjurer is no fool.If he had ever thought of being a fool he wouldnever have been a conjurer. Well, then, sincehe is no fool, his opinion is worth having ; andif he has seen, from the few sketches I have
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The Great Court Conjurer 13
made at his place, that my work is good, you
may be quite sure that it is very good ; other-wise he would not offer to give away all the
secrets of his work for one small picture from
me. Why, man, your fortune’s made! In
exchange for one small picture from me you
learn all there is to learn about conjuring froma master of the art."
Inexperienced as I was, I had my doubts about
the Great Court Conjurer being a master of
the art; but I did not discuss the point, and
eventually we came to terms.
“ What sort of a picture do you think hewants ? ’’ asked the artist.
“ I don’t know. He said a picture `to my
orders.’ ”
“ Oh," said the artist, “ I expect he wants a
little landscape, or something of that sort, to hangoutside his place as an attraction to the public.
You know," he added confidently, “ I always
thought that conjurer was a cut above the
ordinary conjurers; he has refined tastes, you
may depend upon it.”
Seeing that I was striving every day to become a conjurer myself, I thought this was
rather unkind, but I was so anxious not to deter
my friend from painting the picture that I
refrained from starting a discussion about con-
jurers and their refinement—or lack of it.
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14 Woes of a Wizard
“ I’ve come to paint that picture for you,”
said my friend, the artist, as we entered the shopin which the Great Court Conjurer performed.
“ And when it’s done you won’t forget your part of the bargain ? ” I put in.
“ No, I won’t forget, — when it's done,” headded meaningly.
“Oh, I can do it for you,” said my artist,somewhat haughtily.
“ Very well, then,” said the Great CourtConjurer, “now what I want is this.”
I le proceeded to explain at great length the
kind of picture he required, and I can see nowthe long series of different expressions that flittedacross my artist’s face as the old showmanspoke. At the beginning my friend just stutteredout “ Oh! ” at the end of each sentence, buttowards the close he seemed to have recovered
his presence of mind, and he began to arguewith the conjurer.
“ But I would much rather paint you a pictureof my own making,” he said.
“ No,” said the conjurer, “ I don’t want noneof your landscapes (he put two adjectives beforelandscapes), or sea-scenes, or portraits, or any-think — except just the picture I told you of. Isit a deal ? ”
The artist said he would think it over forhalf an hour. I could not blame him; for
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The Great Court Conjurer 15
certainly the picture that the Great Court
Conjurer required was no ordinary picture.The scene was to be the largest state-room in
Windsor Castle. The two principal figures in
the picture were to be the Great Court Conjurer
and his wife. The lady was to be sitting on the
throne, her eyes were to be bandaged, and theGreat Court Conjurer was to be holding up a
pocket-handkerchief. The picture, according to
the man’s own directions, was to be called :
“ What ’ave we ’ere? The State Performance.”
The Queen and all the members of the royal
family were to be sitting or standing near the two performers. The Great Court Conjurer stipulated
that the likenesses should be good, that the
men should have on military or naval uniforms,
and that the ladies were to be wearing evening-
dress and large quantities of diamonds. Orders
and decorations were to be in great profusion,
and the place was to be brilliantly lit by tall
candles. On one side was to be a small table
on which various flags, ribbons, and other articles
used in the performance were to be prominently
displayed. Some of the members of the royalfamily were to be applauding— apparently with
great energy,—some were to be open-mouthed
with astonishment, and some were to be laughing
behind gold fans studded with rubies and
sapphires. In the distance there was to be a
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16 Woes of a Wizard
supper-table, sumptuously laid, with at least two
dozen powdered footmen standing on either side.One footman, more gorgeous than the others,
was to be standing near the conjurer’s table.
From the attitude of this special footman it was
to be plain to every one that he had been told
off to act as the conjurer’s assistant.
The Great Court Conjurer bargained for several
other details, but they were comparatively un
important. He was to have three large diamonds
in his shirt, and a massive ring on the third finger
of his right hand — the one that held the handker
chief. The conjurer's wife was to have an orange-coloured silk dress ; on her left arm were to be
three heavy gold bracelets, and on her right arm
there was to be a mass of lighter bracelets set
with various precious stones. Her fingers were,
of course, to be covered with rings.
When the artist said that he would like to consider the offer for half an hour, he really meant
that he wanted to find out how much money I
would give him for the work.
It was pleasant to see the wonderful and rapid
change that had come over the artist. He hadoften talked to me of loving art for art’s sake,
an occupation that he had hitherto followed quite
easily, for his pictures had certainly never brought
him in a halfpenny. Now that he had practically
received his first commission, he soon forgot that
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“ Well,” said the conjurer, “ if you’ll make my
hair a little bit longer, and make my moustache
curl a little bit more upwards, I won’t say any
thing more about it.”
At last then, the picture being finished, I was
able to realise one of my ambitions. I was to
find out how all the Great Court Conjurer’s trickswere done. I went to him with a large note-book
and said that if he would speak slowly I would
write down all he had to say.
“ You needn’t trouble to write nothin’,” he said
with a grin. “ You'll find out how to do all those
tricks I’ve taught yer and sold yer, and all thosetricks I do myself, and lots more of ’em — you’ll
find ’em all out if you’ll get a book called“Modern Magic” by Professor Hoffmann,
They're all explained there. Get the book and
read it."
I have since had reason to be grateful for this
advice. But at the time I was bitterly disap
pointed with the Great Court Conjurer.
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CHAPTER II
THE HOT PUDDING
I DID not always have hot pudding when I wasyoung. At times the menu was bread and
cheese, and mostly bread. Even in those days
I had an idea that if only I learnt enough aboutconjuring the hot pudding would come to meeventually, and, more or less, my hopes have beenrealised. I suppose it must have been becauseas a boy I was so fond of hot pudding, that Ideliberately worked hot pudding into the first
professional conjuring performance I ever gave.I was very young. That was why I engaged asmall hall at five shillings for the afternoon, andexpected that I should be able to make some pocket money by doing tricks for two hours.
There were two prices of admission. If youwere a parent you paid twopence ; if you had themisfortune (you will soon see why it was a mis-fortune) to be a child, you paid a penny. Forthis modest sum you were not only entertained by me, but you were entitled to share in the
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20 Woes of a Wizard
“Grand Fairy Distribution” which came at theend of the performance.
I have never promised so much at an enter-
tainment since. In order to get the hall for five
shillings an afternoon, I had to engage it for a
series of performances, and so I announced that
each Saturday there would be a complete changeof programme. The first entertainment went
capitally. I had practised hard, and had caused
my name to be put in large letters outside the
hall. I had an idea that this, in itself, would
be sufficient to draw a large crowd.
I was not disappointed with the size of my
first audience but I noticed, after the first few
tricks, that the first two rows appeared to be
unduly anxious about the “ Fairy Distribution.”
At length, some of my audience entreated me to
come to that part of the performance. Now tohave done that would have upset my scheme.
To tell you the truth, I could not have given
the “ Fairy Distribution” in the middle of the
entertainment, but had I confessed my inability
I should have lowered myself in the eyes of
my audience. Therefore I had to pretend thatthe fairy had made an appointment to distribute
at half past four, and would not appear until then.
As a matter of fact the good fairy had taken the
money at the door, and while the performance
was in progress the good fairy was regulating
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The Hot Pudding 21
the size of his distribution to the size of the
audience.Have you guessed what my “ Fairy Distribu
tion ” was? It was a real large, hot pudding — beautifully cooked, with plums inside. In shapeit was a “ roly-poly.” I remember that at thefirst performance the plums in the pudding were
very numerous ; we wished to attract the audienceagain.
The pudding was introduced adroitly. Iflattered myself that I had hit upon a new andoriginal trick, and in that respect I was right.
No conjurer of my acquaintance has ever daredto conjure with a hot pudding ; I don’t think thatmany of them have thought that their audienceswanted hot pudding.
My great trick was really a variation of theomelette trick. You know that ? The conjurer
brings on a silver-plated dish (mine was notsilver-plated) and shows it to be empty. He breaks an egg into it, puts on the lid, waves hiswand, takes off the lid, and the omelette is made !I began my trick by chopping up a few pieces ofsuet and mixing them with plums. Then I puton my lid, waved my wand, and brought out thenice, savoury-smelling, hot pudding. I know thatat the first performance I had great difficulty inrestraining myself from tasting the pudding. I almost hoped that some of my audience would be
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22 Woes of a Wizard
so amazed at its sudden appearance that, they
would refrain from eating it ; then I should have
had to encourage them by helping myself to a
piece. However, the pudding was so popular
that afternoon that it all disappeared as quickly
as it had been produced ; and I was left with the
pleasing reflection that though I was exceedinglyhungry, my success as a conjurer was assured.
I may mention that I received nothing for the
performance. The money-taker, who had been
responsible for the making of the pudding, assured
me that there was “no change.”
My hot pudding trick being so successful Irepeated it on the following Saturday. To save
expense I magically “ converted ” the same
chopped suet and plums that I had used at the
first performance. Once more the trick was
successful, and once more I received no money
for my afternoon's work. This was not exactly
what I had expected, and so I stipulated that on
the following Saturday afternoon the pudding
should be of a cheaper kind. I did not discover
until the consequences could not be avoided, that
I had made a mistake in thus changing the pudding. I know now that I ought to have
changed the money-taker. No sooner had I
reached the “Fairy Distribution” in my third
performance than I saw that my audience were
becoming restless ; and just as I was about to
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The Hot Pudding 23
touch the dish with my magic wand and disclose
the hot pudding, a small, lean boy—the sort of boy that eats all day without getting fat — ex-
claimed in a high, squeaky voice :
“ Please, we’re tired of pudden’. We should
like somethink else—sweets, or nuts, or oranges.”
The suggestion horrified me. Here was mygreat popular success failing at the third per-
formance ! The worst of it was that directly one
boy had spoken the others began to chime in.
They said unkind things about my pudding.
They referred to its stodginess, and to the fact
that it was not half so good as the puddings thatmother made on Sundays. I reasoned with the
grumblers. I pointed out to them, first of all,
that they had spoken too late ; they ought to
have sent in their requests before the commence-
ment of the performance. Then the spokesman—
I can see him now, the ugly, awkward little
brute — replied to me. He said that according
to the bill stuck upon the door I had promised
to give a complete change of programme every
Saturday. This was the third Saturday, and
they had had hot pudding twice before. I madethe obvious reply that I used a fresh pudding at
every performance and therefore the programme
was changed. To tell you the truth, I was a
little annoyed at this ingratitude and interruption,
and I pointed out to them that if they did not
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24 Woes of a Wizard
appreciate the performance there were plenty of
other little boys in the neighbourhood, who would be only too pleased to get an afternoon’s amuse
ment and some pudding for a penny.
By this time I knew that the pudding was
getting horribly cold and clammy, so I said the
magic words, and a few others that I hope werenot audible, and I brought my magic wand down
with a smash on the tin cover. The grumblers
ate the pudding in silence.
The audience at the next performance was
smaller; the “Fairy Distribution” was accord
ingly reduced in size ; and the supply of plumswas very meagre. The absence of plums seemed
to have an exhilarating effect on the front row.
They asked for plums ; they suggested that I
was keeping back the plums for myself, and one
boy even went so far as to say that he could
make a better pudding with a lump of dough
and a beer-can. I treated the remarks with
silent disdain.
Every week after that my Saturday afternoon
audience became smaller; consequently the
“Fairy Distributions” were almost plumless.At last — it was one wretched, wet Saturday
afternoon — everything seemed to go wrong all at
once. One boy, who had been helped by me
most liberally to hot pudding, complained that he
did not want quite so much at once ; he preferred
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26 Woes of a Wizard
useful pudding, but when it was divided up into
small pieces and allowed to get cold, it seemed to be a kind of imitation putty. Since then I have
often heard of tricks falling flat, and jokes falling
flat, but I never remember having seen or heard
of anything that fell quite so flat as that pudding.
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CHAPTER III
OTHER PEOPLE’S WOES
I HAVE often been the cause of indicting a
great deal of misery on some of the kind
people who have come to see me. You may
remember that in one of my card tricks I borrowa lady’s handkerchief and give a pack of cards
to another member of the audience. A card is
selected .without my seeing it; the pack is shuffled
and given to someone else ; the lady’s handker-
chief is then placed in a small cabinet ; a littleslow music is played, and as the last chord dies
away I open the cabinet and take out the hand-
kerchief. Then I ask the gentleman who chose
the card to tell everyone what it was. On one
occasion it happened to be a five of hearts. I
took the lady’s handkerchief out of the cabinet,held it up, and, as usual, showed that the card
which had been chosen had mysteriously got into
the cabinet, and had printed itself on the hand-
kerchief. There was the five of hearts right in
the centre of the handkerchief! It was always2 7
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28 Woes of a Wizard
my custom when doing this trick to tell the
lady quietly, as I handed the handkerchief backto her, that I had not damaged the handker
chief in any way, and that the red paint would
all disappear in the wash. Upon the particular
evening to which I refer, the lady was extremely
kind, and said that she did not really mind
whether the five of hearts came out in the
wash, or whether it remained on the handkerchief,
because it was only an old one. Then she
crumpled it up and put it in her pocket. Later
on in the evening she took it out, and used it for
the purpose for which a handkerchief is intended,and in doing so painted her nose a bright ver
milion. As the audience were leaving the hall
I overheard two old ladies talking about the lady
who had lent me the handkerchief.
Oh, yes, my dear,” said one lady, “she’s
a terrible sufferer, she is — has such awfulattacks of indigestion. Did you notice her nose
to-night? Quite painful, I’m sure.”
I once made up my mind to play a little
practical joke on a friend of mine who was very
keen on collecting engravings. His walls werecovered with pictures, and so I had no difficulty
in selecting one well-known one, and getting
an artist friend to imitate just one corner of the
picture. I took this corner and fastened it on
my friend’s picture. When I went round in
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Other People's Woes 29
the evening to show them a few tricks, l could
hardly keep myself from laughing for thinking
what a frightful state of mind my friend would
be in, when he saw me go up to one of his pet
engravings and apparently tear off the corner.
Of course I was going to continue the trick by
restoring the picture in the way that the “ torn playing card ” is usually restored. I was so
eager to do that trick, and to see my friend’s
face absolutely glowing with anger, as he saw
one of his pet pictures apparently destroyed,
that I ate scarcely any supper. When the time
came for me to do my tricks I began on thetorn engraving. I was not disappointed in seeing
my friend get very angry ; indeed, his face was
absolutely livid. I felt a little embarrassed
myself, more especially when I discovered that
I had torn off a corner of the wrong picture !
He had two copies!
A very pretty trick with white roses can be
performed by anyone, without much knowledge
of sleight-of-hand. You get two or three
roses and a little analine dye of various colours.
You keep the colours quite distinct and dusta little dye on each rose. Then shake each rose,
and the fine powdered dye will not be noticeable.
Then bring your roses before your audience
and tell them that by watering them with your
magic spray you will cause them to become
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30 Woes of a Wizard
coloured. The magic spray simply contains a
little eau-de-cologne or other scent. The spiritfrom the scent dissolves the dye, and immediately
each rose is coloured. I had taught a pupil
this once, and on the next morning I received
the following letter from her father :
“Dear Mr . Devant,—.
“ Will you kindly not teach my daughter any
tricks which will entail the dyeing of the drawing-room
carpet, grand piano, and the hearthrug? I may tell
you that these are only a few of the articles which
have been coloured since you gave your lesson last
night ; but we are hoping that the dye from the diningroom carpet and curtains can be removed. At present,
however, the entire household is being dyed. Dye
is in the air. My daughter was going out to a dance
this evening, but she is afraid that people will think
her rather strange unless she can manage to get her
arms and hands any other colour but an apple-green.
I shall be very glad if you will confine your tricks, inthe future, to some of a less harmful kind.
“ Yours faithfully."
I may add that the writer of this letter had
a certain amount of justification for it. The
trick I described was very pretty, but it iscertainly very messy unless you are careful.
That is why I never perform it myself. I once
tried it at the Egyptian Hall, and a friend who
came into my dressing-room told me he had
never been in such a pretty place in his life, and
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Other People’s Woes 31
he supposed I had done it myself. He was quite
right, but I did not tell him that I had nevermeant to do it myself.
I was once doing the watch and rabbit trick in
a hall, and had borrowed the watch of a friend of
mine. When he came on to the stage he
whispered to me :“ I have a small bottle of champagne in my
pocket; you can produce that if you like. No
one knows anything about it, and it will be quite
safe.”
When the time came for me to produce the
rabbit, I remarked upon the fact that the watchwas tied round the rabbit’s neck with a blue
ribbon. I said to the man : “ This rabbit is
not a teetotaler, I’m afraid ; ” and with that I
produced his bottle of champagne. This trick
was highly successful, because my friend forgot
all about the bottle of champagne, and left it
with me.This variation of the trick was so successful
that I determined that I would add it to the trick
in my other performances. I thought that bottled
champagne might be rather a dangerous stuff tohandle, and so I did the trick with half a bottle
of port. The trick was an immense success,
because the friends of the man on whom I found
half a bottle of port never believed that he had
not had it on him when he came into the hall.
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32 Woes of a Wizard
After a time, however, although that trick went
down very well, it was not quite so good as I had
anticipated it would be. The fact was, men
started to claim the port after I had produced it.
just as the man was leaving the stage he would
put out his hand and say:
"Well, you found that little bottle on me andI’m very glad. I’ve got an invalid wife at home ;
it’ll just do her good, I’ll take it with me.
Thanks."
I imagine that at that time there must have
been a large number of men in England who
had invalid wives, and who yet managed toget away to come and see my performance when
I was in their town. I must have given away
many dozens of half-bottles of port to invalid
wives in this way. Perhaps you may be wonder
ing why I have included that story in the chapter
called “ Other People’s Woes." But then you
don’t know that port. I do. I bought it and I
know what it cost ; and I know what you have
to give for half a bottle of good port.
On one occasion 1 borrowed a wedding-ring.
I usually have some little difficulty in getting alady to lend me a wedding-ring, but on this
occasion I was kept waiting for fully five minutes
before I at length induced a dear old lady to
let me use her wedding-ring in a trick. Of course
the wedding-ring had to be vanished, and travel
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Other People's Woes 33
round the room, and in and out of people’s
pockets, and generally behave in a way that isquite foreign to any ordinary self-respecting
wedding-ring.
You will know that it is equally certain that at
the end of the trick the wedding-ring was dis
covered neatly folded up in a piece of tissue
paper, which was sealed up in an envelope,which was found in the centre of a new loaf of
bread. When I handed the envelope back to
the lady she protested that the ring was not
there. People began to titter ; but on this occasion
I did not lose my head, for I was absolutelycertain that the ring was there, because I had
put it there myself.
The lady continued to tell me in a very
loud voice that I had lost her wedding-ring;
and that she was completely undone ; that she
wished she had not lent it to me ; and that itserved her right ; and that she would never see
it again. It was soon evident that the remainder
of the audience regarded me as a human monster,
who had come there with a fixed intention of
swindling a harmless old widow out of her
wedding-ring. At length, because the people at
the back were getting rather noisy in their
demands for that wedding-ring, I suggested that
I should come down from the platform and help
the old lady find it. Her friends jumped at the
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idea ; several of them beamed with delight and
giggled as I came off the platform. Theysaid :
“ Why, my dear, it’s all a joke — now comes
the trick. He's got it on him somewhere. He'll
find it all right. Don’t cry.”
He had not got it on him, and it was not the
trick, I could only assure the old lady that the
wedding-ring had been in the packet, and that she
must have dropped it, and that it must have rolled
away. I told her that if she would kindly wait
until after the other people had gone I would
have the place swept and searched, and wouldguarantee that the ring should be found. I am
happy to say that the audience seemed a little
reassured at this. When the performance was
over I had the place searched, and the wedding
ring was discovered between the cracks in the
flooring. It was a very small ring, and it had been worn a great deal.
When I returned it to the old lady, with my
profuse apologies for the inconvenience I had
caused her, she retorted that it was not her
wedding-ring. She said she knew her wedding
ring ; and if it had not been for the fact that she
was a kind woman and had had sons of her own,
and did not wish to see me in trouble, she should
have known what to do. I protested that I had
done nothing except to restore her wedding-ring,
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Other People's Woes 35
and she said that I was only making matters
worse, and that since I appeared to be so muchin need of the necessaries of life that I could
stoop to robbery, she would give me the ring
which I had found, and which she hastened to
add was not her own.
I do not know what would have been the end
of that little mishap, but just at that moment the
old lady’s companion came into the empty hall
and recognised in me the conjurer who, a year
before, had given his services on behalf of their
Sunday School. The companion assured the old
lady that the wedding-ring I had found was herwedding ring, and that I was not by profession a
thief. The old lady begged my pardon, and said
that she had not noticed the wedding-ring was
hers because she had not been wearing her right
glasses—which I thought was a very feeble excuse
for her rudeness. However, we parted very goodfriends, and I have often appeared at that hall
since on behalf of a particular charity in which
that old lady is very interested. But I do not
borrow her wedding-ring.
Once when I was riding in a ’bus on a wet
day, I found a two-shilling piece amongst the
straw on the floor of the ’bus. The ’bus con
ductor looked at me rather enviously, and I
thought I heard him murmur something about
some people having all the luck, and I afterwards
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36 Woes of a Wizard
discovered three two-shilling pieces at the far
end of the ’bus, and a half-sovereign under theseat. When we got to the end of the journey I
heard the ’bus conductor tell the driver that
some one had been throwing money about inside
the 'bus that morning. He had seen a bloke
pick up about sixteen shillings, and he meant to
use his dinner-time by turning the 'bus inside out.
The driver said that, in that case, if there was
any money to be had, he would willingly assist
the 'bus conductor in finding it.
It was a very hot day, and I understand that
those two men worked exceedingly hard for thewhole of their dinner-hour. I took the same
bus on my return journey, and the conductor
told me what had happened. He said that both
he and the driver had lost their dinner, and the
least I could do was to give them some of the
money I had found. I told him that he was avery careless man, and that he had not searched
the ’bus properly. Then I found half-a-crown
in the straw and got off. I saw him go up on to
the top of the bus, and I heard him inform the
driver that I was a “ blooming miracle.”
I once unconsciously caused a nice white-haired
old gentleman to have a very unhappy five
minutes. I had asked him to add up nine figures
on a slate ; and whether it was that he was old
and he had forgotten how to do simple addition,
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Other People's Woes 37
or whether it was that he was so overcome at being singled out for such public recognition, I
do not know ; but I am absolutely certain that he
could not add 225, 326, 421. He got very red
in the face; made out that the answer was in
millions ; and generally upset the trick.
I was once recognised by a man in church whowas assisting in taking the collection. He
became very confused when he saw me, and
withdrew the collection plate hurriedly.
Some of my readers may have seen me
produce a box of matches from a man’s beard
when he comes on the stage. I usually ask the
man beforehand if he is a smoker ; and then when
I have found that he is, I tell him not to carry
his matches about in that absurd way. Often
and often those matches are claimed by the man
who comes on the stage. They just say at theend of the trick: “ My matches, I think ?
thanks,” and put the box in their pocket. On
one occasion a man told me that the matches
were his own, and I ventured to suggest that he
had made a little mistake, and that they were my
matches. He said that he was absolutely certainthey were his own ; and a man from the back of
the hall shouted: “Give the man his matches
back.” I, however, persisted in asking him
whether the matches were just the ordinary plain
wax matches ; and the man, who by this time was
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C H A P T E R I VPISTOL STORIES
I SUPPOSE I have caused more commotion
by doing tricks with pistols than I have
with any other kind of apparatus. One of my
earliest mistakes was made with a pistol. It
happened at a performance given in a small
hall for a charity. In the middle of the enter
tainment I suddenly remembered that I had no
charge for my pistol. It was obviously impossible
for me to go through the trick without producingthat wonderful effect caused by firing a pistol,
and so I sent out for some gun-powder. My
messenger was a very good boy. I had told
him not to come back without some gun-powder,
and he assured me that he would not. He
certainly did bring some gun-powder, but Idid not discover until it was too late that it
was the wrong kind of gun-powder. It was
of the kind usually called, I believe, “ blasting
powder.”
In the course of my trick I had to fire the3 9
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40 Woes of a Wizard
pistol at some one’s head. I had previouslyassured all the nervous ladies in the audience
that no ill effects would follow. 1 had as my
assistant a very good-natured Sunday School
superintendent. Possibly you may not know
what “blasting powder” is. I confess that
I did not know of it until that night ; but I foundout all about it pretty quickly then, and so did
the Sunday School superintendent. No sooner
had I fired the pistol than he gave a yell of pain,
put his hand to his face, and shouted out that
he was shot. The audience thought that it was
all part of my performance, and they drowned
his cries of pain with shouts of laughter. No
one laughed more loudly than the vicar himself.
The more the unfortunate man howled, the
louder the people roared with laughter ; and
it was not until they saw me examining the poor man’s face that they began to realise that
something had gone wrong.
Luckily for me it was not anything very serious.
The powder had simply peppered into his skin ;
and though the pain must have been excruciating,
the man was not seriously injured. The vicarstopped the performance, and I felt that my
reputation—like the man’s face— had been blasted.
I remember that the injured man had a young
son who insisted on looking on the bright side
of things. This boy came up to the company
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Pistol Stories 41
several times in the course of the evening and
said cheerfully :
“ He’s got some more out, and he thinks
his face will heal up by next Christmas, if he’s
careful.”
For some weeks afterwards I was not in great
request as a conjurer. Nervous ladies seemedto have a prejudice against coming to my
entertainments, and finally I had to resort to
a little strategy to get them into the place.
Not only did I advertise that there would be
no pistols or fire-arms used in the course of the
performance, and that nothing would happen
which could give any offence, physical, intellectual,
or moral, to any member of the audience, but
I also held out a tempting bait to anyone who
would come and see me. I had large bills
printed—by myself—which set out that I was prepared to offer a reward of £1,000 to anyone
who did not find the doors open at half-past
seven.
I suppose I ought to have taken that mishap
with the pistol to heart, and have made a solemn
resolution that never again would I use a pistolin the course of my performance. Unfortunately,
I did not do so. Many years after I had peppered
the good school superintendent with powder, I was
going to a very nice house in Mayfair to give a
performance. I decided that I would use a new
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42 Woes of a Wizard
pistol trick which I had just invented. I had the pistol with me, and everything else necessary for
the trick.When I arrived at the house I was shown into a
very nice drawing-room, and was told that I couldhave the place entirely to myself for half an hour.
I made all my preparations, and laid the pistol Iwas going to use on a side-table. Then I wentout into the hall and asked a servant to get me
a duster. I particularly did not want anyone togo into the room just then. I had some littledifficulty in finding the servant or a bell ; but at
last I got my duster, and then, just as I wasgoing back to the room, I heard a loud report
followed by a shriek.I rushed into the drawing-room and found
there the young son of the house— a youth abouteighteen. He was very excited, and the momenthe saw me he asked me what I meant by leaving
a loaded revolver about. It seems that he hadsneaked into the room, picked the revolver up,and [lulled the trigger. I am not going to saywhat the revolver was loaded with ; but when
they came to see what damage had been done,they found that one of the curtains had been nicely perforated, a window had been broken, and thewindow sash splintered.
By this time the whole household were in theroom, and every one was talking and arguing at
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Pistol Stories 43
once. The young man who had fired the re
volver maintained that I ought not to have left
a loaded revolver about. I naturally replied that
he had no business in the room, and had no right
to touch what did not belong to him. I am
thankful to say that the young man's father
agreed with me ; and that what looked like a veryunfortunate accident ended quite happily. The
real performance was entirely a success ; but I
was particularly asked to omit the pistol trick.
I was once compelled to conjure for my life.
An excitable Frenchman called at the stage door
of a hall at which I was performing, and sent in
his card to me. When I saw him I recognised
in him — well — perhaps that part of the story-
had better not be told ; but anyhow he was a
dangerous character, and a man to be avoided.
We quarrelled ; at least, he quarrelled with me,and then challenged me to a duel. To his great
surprise I accepted his challenge eagerly, and we
met outside the town the following morning.
The news had spread pretty quickly and a large
number of people were at the wood before us.
When the Frenchman came to load his pistol hefound that the cartridges had been forgotten.
In despair his second came to my second and
begged me to oblige them with a few cartridges.
I replied that it seemed rather hard lines that I
should have to bring cartridges there in order
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44 Woes of a Wizard
that they might be fired at myself; but, still, rather
than baulk the Frenchman of his desire to obtain
what he called satisfaction, I said he could have
the cartridges. His second selected those he
wanted and took them away.
The signal was given to us to fire, and
precisely at the same moment I staggered backand fell full length on the soft turf.
I am not certain how long I lay there, but
when I got up two policemen were standing near
my opponent, and I was told that he would be
charged with maliciously wounding me. I was
also given to understand that a charge would be made out against me. I am not absolutely
certain what the charge was going to be, but
I remember that there was something about
“grievous bodily harm” in it.
It was not until I assured the good policementhat I could not have been hit, because the box
from which the Frenchman’s second had taken
the cartridges was not the box from which he
thought he had taken them, that the unfortunate
man was allowed to go.
You may say that this is an utterly impossiblestory, and that I could not possibly have
performed conjuring tricks with cartridges while
I was in danger of being shot down myself. To
this I reply first, that I knew I was in no
danger of being shot down, and secondly, that I
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Pistol Stories 45
do not pretend that the duel was a real duel. It
was a very nice little piece of advertising business,worked in connection with a company to which
I belonged many years ago ; and it did us a lot
of good. I daresay if you went to the place now,
and reminded some of the inhabitants of the
duel that was fought in the wood, they wouldremember it.
Now I come to think of some of those early
days, I hardly know how to stop writing. I have
performed at queer places, and at strange times.
Sometimes our little company would go to a
market-town, and would perform there as longas we could get an audience. Then we would
drive off to the neighbouring villages to give our
entertainment at the various schoolrooms. The
difficulty always then was to get enough chairs.
Our manager was a very energetic man, and
directly he got to the village schoolroom he
would get hold of a few big boys and would say
to them :
“ Look here, my boys, if you want to come
and see our show for nothing, you get us a
few chairs.”About one hour afterwards you could see the
landscape absolutely dotted with chairs, all coming
towards the schoolroom. We used to get more
chairs than we wanted ; and people’s nice arm
chairs and couches used to have to stay outside
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46 Woes of a Wizard
the schoolroom until the performance was over,
and we could induce boys to take them back totheir proper owners. Then, of course, there
was the difficulty of the piano. We could not
cart a piano about with us on these occasions,
and so we had to go to the nearest house to the
schoolroom — which was generally the Vicarage
—and rap at the door and say :
“ Good-morning. We are members of the
company that is going to perform in your school
room. Will you kindly oblige us by lending
us your piano?”
The request may seem rather cool ; in fact,I don’t know that I ought not to have included
this reminiscence in the chapter called “ Queer
Requests.” But the odd part of it was that
these country clergymen used to get so interested in our entertainment that they cheer
fully and willingly lent us anything. I haveeven borrowed new laid eggs to conjure with,
and have forgotten to give them back again. At
such times our company was very small, and
the duty of the manager was to manage, to see
people in the seats, arrange for the whole of
the lights, sell the tickets, and keep the money.One manager we had did everything very well;
in fact, he kept the money too well — so well
that we never got any of it at all, and had to
tramp back to our head-quarters.
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48 Woes of a Wizard
As we were driving home we took upon our
selves to lecture that manager upon the sin oftrying to run away when you may be sure you
are going to be caught. He replied that he
thought we had been going a bit too far in
firing on him ; and that, after all, if we had
hit him we should probably have been very
sorry for it afterwards. Then we told him thatwe had not fired at him, and had never had any
intention of firing at him, and that we did not
even possess any fire-arms.
This being a book for the home, I cannot
reproduce what that manager said when he foundthat the pistol that had been fired was not our
pistol, and was, in fact, not a pistol at all.
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C H A P T E R V
DEADHEADS
BELIEVE I have come across every typeof deadhead, from the man who says that
he is the country representative of the Times,and who is afterwards found to be connected
with a " We-move-with-the-Times ” local stores,to the man who says that he is dying of consumption, and that if he sees me do the bigflag trick — which some of his friends have toldhim about —he thinks that it will do him good,
He would also like a ticket for his sister, becauseit is not safe for him to be out alone. Youknow that sister? Yes, and so do I.
Perhaps the champion deadhead of all (nowdon’t be frightened, I’m not going to give yourname away) is a man who called on me a year
or two ago. (If he reads this he will see that Ihave exaggerated a little there.) This gentlemanasked for seven seats for the performance ofMaskelyne and Cooke’s Mysteries. I suggestedto him, as nicely as I could, that, if he could give
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50 Woes of a Wizard
me some good reason why he should have the
seats, I might perhaps be able to comply withhis demand. I had then been staying in the
town for four weeks.
In reply to my request this man, who, by
the way, was a clergyman, said that he was
very poor, that he had a large family, and that
everyone was very kind to him by helping him
in every possible way. He then stepped outside
and beckoned to some one to come in. In walked
a girl of about seventeen, who was introduced
as “ my daughter.” I was about to tell the
young lady’s father that I would think aboutgiving him the seats he had asked for, when
he stepped outside again and called in a boy
of fifteen. He continued to produce children
in this mysterious way, and when the whole six
were in front of me, he said :
“ There you are, Mr. Devant. Those are mychildren, and they all want to come and see your
show. They are all very talkative children ; I’m
sure you can't hear yourself speak sometimes
in our house for the noise those children make.
They are always chattering. The eldest takes
after her dear mother ; in fact, they all do.”
I told him that I considered that happy state
of things was highly satisfactory ; but the dear,
silly old man did not see that I had implied that
it was a good thing that the children had not
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Deadheads 51
taken after him. I was about to add some other
little pleasantry of this sort when he interruptedme and said :
“ Now you see, Mr. Devant, the children are
so talkative that if you give us all seats for your
performance tor Saturday afternoon, they will
talk so much about it that you will get a splendid
advertisement for nothing.”
This happened on the Thursday. I pointed
out to the parson that I was leaving the town
after Saturday night, and so I did not quite see
what benefit I should derive from anything his
children might say about me on Saturdayafternoon.
“ But another year, Mr. Devant,” said the
cheery old man ; “ another year — you will come
another year, of course ? We have heard what a
splendid entertainment you give, and everyone
will want to come another year.”I asked him if he really thought that, and he
said that he was quite certain that the whole
neighbourhood would come another year. I
replied that in that case any advertisement that
his children could give me by talking about mewas quite unnecessary, because if the whole
neighbourhood came to see the show another
year the hall would not be large enough. That
seemed to checkmate him for a time and there
was a lull in the conversation, during which the
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52 Woes of a Wizard
children regarded me in an ashamed sort of way,
as though I had been playing practical jokes ontheir venerable father. The old man—he was
not really old, but he looked old — returned to the
attack. He put aside the immense advantage
he was going to confer on me, by using seven
of my best seats for nothing, and adopted theusual begging tactics, He was a poor man, and
the children were just home from school, and
they would so much enjoy it, etc., etc. I re-
lented, and gave him a pass for the six children
and himself. While we had been talking the
people had begun to arrive at the early doorsfor the evening performance. I am glad to say
that there was rather a rush that night. He
smiled fatuously at me for a few moments, and
then whispered confidentially :
“ Do you know, Mr. Devant, we heard you
were here through your advertisements in the
papers and on the hoardings.”
I do not know whether the old man thought
that that information would be comforting to me ;
but when I told him that we usually expected
a few people to see the advertisements, hesaid;
`Indeed! I always thought that you put the
advertisement in the papers, and then they sent
a reporter and gave you a paragraph in the paper
on the following week. I once arranged a bazaar,
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Deadheads 53
quite a large affair. Mr. Trillingham, our local
Member of Parliament — you may have heard of
him in London — was going to open the bazaar,
but at the last moment was prevented. The
editor of our local paper said that if he had been
there the affair would have been of some public
interest; but as he was not there he could onlyinsert the report of the bazaar if we paid for it
as an advertisement, or if we gave an advertise-
ment beforehand. My wife opened the bazaar,
and my eldest son there did some conjuring tricks
which were a great success, and-------- ”
The eldest son interrupted his father to assureme that they were only a very few tricks, and very
simple ones ; and that he was quite sure he did
them very badly, although he added hastily that
he was equally sure no one had seen through
them.The champion deadhead told his son and me
that his son did the tricks very well indeed ;
although, of course, he added, lest I should be
offended, and withdraw those free passes, “ he
was nothing like so good as you, Mr. Devant —
he wasn’t really.”Seeing the people going into the hall the
champion deadhead rubbed his hands together
and said that he was glad I was going to have
such a good audience. I thanked him, and then
he said :
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56 Woes of a Wizard
The eyes of the champion deadhead sparkled, but he said, rather feebly as I thought :
“ No, thank you ; really, no, thank you. My
children can wait quite well till they get home.
They won’t be much more hungry than they
generally are, and I’ve no doubt there is a nice
supper waiting for them.”He said this in a way that suggested that in
all probability the supper would have faded away
before the children got back to it. The children
seemed to have the same idea, for they smiled
feebly, and I thought I heard a whisper of
“ bread and dripping.”
Having disposed of my manager-—he was on
the point of suggesting that the hall-keeper’s wife
was a very good cook, and if a steak and potatoes
would be acceptable he thought they could be
managed without the slightest difficulty —I turnedto the old man and told him that I could not
possibly give him seats for that night's perform
ance. He might keep his seven free passes for
the Saturday afternoon ; but if he thought that
his children would not enjoy the performance at
the first sight of it, then he had better not bringthem. He hastily assured me that it was not
that at all. He had only been thinking that
there might be some empty seats at the evening’s
performance then coming on ; and he had thought
that it would be so much nicer for me to have
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Deadheads 57
the place full. He added slyly that his children
were very strong in the arms, and that when they
clapped their hands—well, “you should have
heard them at our bazaar,” he added, “when I
recited `Half a league, half a league, half a
league onward.' We always say that they make
an audience in themselves.”I said nothing; and in the course of a few
minutes he rose to go. As he was leaving he
remarked that there did not appear to be so
many people coming in just then ; but as I did
not respond to the hint, he turned to one of the
younger children and said :
“Never mind, Tommy, my boy; we can't
come to-night, but we’ll all make up for it on
Saturday afternoon. We can’t come in to-night—
not to-night. . .``
He kept on repeating “ not to-night" in a waythat made me feel that I was some stern parent
dealing with a large family of my own, and that
the old man was my eldest son. I kept up to
the character by not changing my mind. My
manager told me afterwards that they stood a
long time outside the hall and watched the latecomers arrive. I rather fancy that the old man
was making calculations as to the number of
seats that were probably vacant.
They all turned up on the Saturday afternoon.
The free pass was duly presented and nine
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58 Woes of a Wizard
people passed in. My check-taker stopped themand said that the pass admitted only seven. Thechampion deadhead retorted that he knew Mr.Devant, and that he was quite sure that therewould be no objection to nine coming in. I wassent for, and when he saw me the old man
grasped my hand and said :“So glad to see you again. You see we’ve
come. It has been a long journey; you see wecannot afford the train both ways (I looked roundin fear lest my manager should overhear him, andshould suggest that he would send for a cab forthe return journey). “ I’ve brought my dearwife with me; I felt sure that you would notmind. I did not ask for a ticket for her becauseI thought you would take it for granted that Ishould bring her. And then we thought it was
such hard lines on our dear old nurse to leaveher at home. She gets out very little, andseldom goes to an entertainment of any kind, soshe’s sure to enjoy yours. (I bowed my acknowledgments of that compliment.) She is shortlygoing to leave us ; you see they are practically
all grown up now, and so the dear old nurse isgoing away to South Africa. I've told her to besure and talk a great deal about you and yourentertainment to all the people on board ship onthe way out, and to all the people she meets inCape Town and other places wherever she may
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Deadheads 59
be ; and you will talk about Mr. Devant, and his
wonderful performance, won’t you, nursie ? ”
The nurse replied that if she did not know
how to talk when she was told, then what was
the good of her being a nurse ? I do not
pretend to follow that argument, but perhaps
some of my readers who understand nurses cantell me what the dear old soul meant.
Of course they asked for programmes, and
when the programme boy suggested that the
present of a seat did not include a programme,
they told him that he was very impudent, and
that they were all friends of mine, and were goingto talk about the performance to other people.
My manager came to the rescue and gave them
the programmes. He expressed his regret that
there were no books of the words, but said
that he would ask me to speak very slowly, so
that if anyone liked to write my “patter” down
they could do so, and perhaps it would come in
useful at the next bazaar. The parson thanked
my manager effusively, and said that it was re-
freshing to find a man so kind and generous
and obliging.Later on in the afternoon, during the interval,
the parson beckoned my manager towards him
and said in a whisper :
“ You were kind enough on Thursday evening
to suggest that some— er— refreshments of—
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60 Woes of a Wizard
er — some kind might be provided. Would it
be troubling you too much to let me have just
one bun for my little boy? It’s getting near
his tea-time and he’s so hungry, and if we go
out and get something I’m afraid we shall miss
the next thing. It would be so very kind of
you, if you would.”The fond mother added a request that the
bun might have no currants in it, as Tommy
never could digest currants. Her husband
whispered that that did not matter, at which
his wife became rather cross and said that it
did matter very considerably, and she supposedthat if the poor child was sick it would matter
very much.
My manager came and asked me what to do,
and I told him that, as he had brought all the
trouble on himself, he could go out and buy the boy a bun and put it down to me.
When 1 went on to the stage to show my
experiments in sleight-of-hand, I made the usual
request that a member of the audience would
come forward and act as my assistant. The
parson and his wife and the six children andthe nurse all rose in a body. 1 know that they
meant to be kind, and that it was merely their
way of showing that they were grateful for the
free seats; but the remainder of the audience
did not see the matter quite in that light. They
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Deadheads 61
thought that the nine people were confederates
of mine, and I had some little difficulty in con-vincing them that the family were not members
of my company.
At the conclusion of the performance the
champion deadhead came to thank me for having
given him and his family a very enjoyable
evening.
“And now,” he said, laying his hand on my
shoulder and looking up into my face, “ I want
you to promise me one thing. I want you to
be sure and let me know well beforehand next
year when you are coming. Then, you see,we shall be able to come on the first night and
go away and talk about it, and that will do you
such a lot of good ; and if you change the pro-
gramme after the first fortnight we shall be able
to come again—twice in the month — and that
will do you all the more good."I do not know, even now, quite how he managed
to do it, but that man left me with the impression
that he had really come to see the performance
solely with the desire to confer a favour on
me ; and I had a kind of vague idea that I was
indebted to him for having accepted nine free
passes. He was a wonderful man, and I am
rather looking forward to meeting him again
on my next tour. I am a little curious to see
in what way he will extend his requests to me,
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62 Woes of a Wizard
for I do not quite understand how he can im
prove on his first effort, unless he asks to beallowed to bring his wife’s relations.
Beside the champion deadhead all others are
comparatively modest in their demands. Occa
sionally I am asked for a couple of seats for a
man who has found out—so he says — how all
the tricks and illusions are done ; but if I give
him two seats I can rely on his keeping his
mouth shut. When I get a note of this kind
I generally send out word that if the bearer
will wait a moment I will come and see him.
I then let him wait until the cheaper seats haveall been sold, and the people are in their places,
and then I tell the man that if it is a case of
his paying for a seat, or seats,or telling every
body all my secrets, I should prefer him to adopt
the latter course. He usually retorts that he
did not mean it quite like that, and he would be very much obliged for a couple of seats. I
consider that I am then within my rights in
telling him that the free list has been entirely
suspended, and in referring him to the box-
office.
There is another kind of deadhead which I
used to meet pretty frequently when I was on
tour, but which, I am happy to say, is now
getting rather scarce. This deadhead never
comes to ask for seats. His method of getting
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Deadheads 63
— or rather trying to get — a free entertainment,
is as follows :First of all he stops me in the street — I
should add that this kind of deadhead only grows
in the smaller towns — and calling me by name
he says that he cannot help stopping me as
some of his friends have so much enjoyed my
show, and he hopes it is doing well. After afew moments he blurts out an invitation to me
to come to supper, one evening after my
show. He adds that his wife and children were
so interested in seeing the performance that
they very much want to have the pleasure of
shaking me by the hand. At this I blush and
look confused— at least I used to, but I know
better now — and murmur something about being
delighted. Then this deadhead goes on to
apologize for the homeliness of his household.
He says that he hopes I won’t mind taking themas they are, without any ceremony.
When I get to the house I usually find that
I am expected not only by my host and hostess,
but by a large circle of friends. Everyone is
in evening dress, and it is evident that they
have been having a very good time generally.We have a nice little supper, and then in the
drawing-room afterwards, someone begins to talk
about conjuring. In all probability a youth will
assert that such and such a trick cannot be done
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Deadheads 65
suggests that perhaps on another evening I
might be able to oblige him. At the samemoment I remember that I am engaged for every
evening that I am spending in their town. The
rest of the party passes off rather quietly, and
the host is not quite so eager to show me those
little courtesies that a guest expects.I think that this kind of deadhead is even
Worse than the kind that goes to the box office
and demands seats on false pretences. I used
to be caught regularly by these home-loving
deadheads, who like to have the show entirely
private, and without paying for it ; but now Ido not respond eagerly to that kind of invitation,
unless I happen to be wanting an evening’s
amusement all to myself.
Before closing this chapter I should like to
correct an impression that seems to be rather
general in the provinces. Many of the great
British public, especially in the smaller towns,
regard representatives of the Press as deadheads.
I should like to add— though it seems hardly
necessary to do so— that I do not share in
that opinion. So many people in a small countrytown are rather jealous of the representatives
of the Press, because pressmen always receive
invitations. I have reason to believe that these
invitations are not altogether unacceptable
because, whenever we are in a town for any
5
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CHAPTER VI
THE LADY WHO WOULD NOT VANISH
F people who arrange bazaars and other
entertainments for charities were to come
to me and ask me how to make their enterprises
profitable, I should answer : “ Get a young andenthusiastic amateur conjurer ; make a side show
of him ; let him perform frequently during the
afternoon and evening, and charge sixpence
admission. The young and enthusiastic amateur
conjurer will fill the hall with his friends, and
all will be well with that bazaar,’ I know,
because I first appeared in public at a bazaar.
It came about in this way. After the Great
Court Conjurer had told me to buy and to study
“ Modern Magic,” I saved money carefully until
I had acquired the book. Then I practisedhard.
One day I saw a bill announcing a bazaar at
which a conjurer was to perform. It was not
my fault that I arrived too late to see the
conjuring ; but I was in time to speak with67
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68 Woes of a Wizard
the conjurer. He seemed rather tired, andseveral people were sitting round and badgering
him with questions.
I said, “ Good-evening, Professor,`` without
waiting for an introduction ; and informed him
with much cheerfulness that I knew all about
conjuring, and I could palm.“Yes?” said the Professor wearily.
“ Yes," I replied, a happy smile illuminating
my young and silly face. With that I attempted
to palm a halfpenny. It dropped with a horrible
clatter on the floor.
“ You want a little more practice,” said the
Professor. He seemed much more tired than
when I first spoke to him.
I slunk away ; but when I reached my house
I took that halfpenny out again and practised
for many hours.About three weeks afterwards another bazaar
was being held in the neighbourhood. I went
to the secretary, and, with the confidence of
youth, offered my services as a conjurer. They
were accepted so readily that I felt bound to
explain that I had had very little experience.“ Oh, that's all right,” said the secretary ; “ the
fact is Professor ` A--------’ was scorning. But I’ve
just heard from him that he’s ill, and won’t be
able to appear, He’s an awfully good sort, and
will lend you anything you want, and give you
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The Lady Who would not Vanish 69
any assistance in his power— I’m sure. Go to
him and say I sent you.”
Now Professor `A--------’ was the very conjurer
who had seen me, but three weeks before, bungling
with a halfpenny! I therefore felt some mis-
givings in going to him ; but from the happy
smile that came over his face when I told himthat I was going to conjure in public, I concluded
that my performance would at least be amusing.
However, when he saw that I was deadly in
earnest—and I had learnt a great deal during the
three weeks— he was very kind, and helped me
to make my performance a success. On the dayof the bazaar I caused all my relations and friends
to be present in large numbers. My happiness
was not perfect, because I could not be sure
whether the secretary’s great glee was due to the
brilliancy of my performance, or to the fact thatI had made about thirty people pay for admission
two or three times during the day. At the close
of the bazaar he congratulated me on “ the ex-
cellent attendances” I had secured, and I was
equally uncertain as to whether he wished to
compliment me on my conjuring, or on my abilityas an “agent in advance.”
To my great joy I discovered, during the day,
that Professor Hoffmann had been present at one
of my performances, and I had heard that he had
said I should make a conjurer one day. At this
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72 Woes of a Wizard
Then they told each other what I had said. I
did the vanishing trick very quickly then — with
an impudent youth, by name David Devant.
I began to think that my efforts to do the
Vanishing Lady Trick would never be successful
when one day I came across the two ladies I
wanted. They were dressed alike, their faceswere very much alike, and they were of the same
height. I was so struck with their appearance
that I followed them— discreetly —and eventually
saw them go into a dressmaker’s shop. The
next thing was to get an introduction to the
ladies. But how ? I could find no one whoknew them. In order not to lose sight of them I
met them regularly every morning as they were
going to business, and I hoped —oh, how I
hoped !— that one of them would be attacked by
a dog, or nearly run over by a ’bus, so that I
might then rescue her and earn her lasting
gratitude, and engage her for my Vanishing
Lady Trick, till at the same time. A friend, to
whom I had confided my hopes, offered to bring
his dog one morning, and to make him bark
savagely just as the two young ladies turned thecorner.
I had almost decided to close with this offer;
but another friend, who, I afterwards found,
had been bitten by the aforesaid dog, told me
that if I attempted any rescue work when that
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The Lady Who would not Vanish 73
dog was on the scene, one of two things would
inevitably happen. Either I should be bitten badly myself, or one of the two ladies would be bitten in such a way that her likeness to herfriend would be effectually and permanentlydestroyed. Either way, I should still be unable
to do my Vanishing Lady Trick ; so I had tothink of a simpler plan of obtaining the intro-duction I needed.
At last there came a time when I could waitno longer. All the apparatus was ready, and Iwas determined that I would do the Vanishing
Lady Trick that week. My plan was quitesimple. Not being able to get an introductionin the usual way, I resolved to introduce myself.I therefore walked up to the two ladies, raisedmy hat, and said very politely :
“ Pardon me— er —good morning. Would youmind being vanishing ladies ? ”
(I don’t suppose any one will believe it, butthis is absolutely and entirely true.)
I cannot describe properly what happenednext. The two ladies jumped on one side, and
were evidently going to run away. I thereforeassured them hurriedly that it was for a trick,and they would be paid. I had selected them because of their charming presence, and I re-gretted not having been introduced.
Slowly it dawned on the two ladies that I was
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The Lady Who would not Vanish 75
the hall by secret ways objected to that part
of her work. She had discovered her importance,
and she wanted it to be known that she was
the Real Vanishing Lady.
My difficulties were considerably increased, at
times, by my own friends. They would come
to the performance, and then send messages tome, asking for an introduction to the Vanishing
Lady; and did I think I could induce her to
come with me to their house to supper ? I
dreaded having those messages. The outcome
of them always was that I had to decide which
of the two Vanishing Ladies I should takewith me. As to my being able to “ induce ”
the Vanishing Lady to come to supper, the
trouble always was to induce her to stay away,
and go home quietly. Sometimes we would be
asked to dances together; then my troubleswould be greater than usual, for a dance was
naturally more attractive than a supper. Finally
I had to make an agreement, that if one Vanish-
ing Lady went to a dance the other Vanishing
Lady should go to two suppers—on two different
evenings of course.My method of presenting this trick was ex-
tremely simple. The Vanishing Lady would
walk from the stage down into the hall, in order
that the audience might see that she was not
an automaton. Then she would return to the
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76 Woes of a Wizard
stage and sit down on a small cane chair placed
on an ordinary kitchen-table. I would cover
her for a moment with a cloth, pull it off quickly,
and she would be gone. After that, I usually
said :
“ Where are you ? Where are you ? ”
The Vanishing Lady then appeared in thegallery, and exclaimed :
“ I am here—in the gallery.”
One night something went wrong. I pulled
the cloth off and the Vanishing Lady had not
vanished ! At the same time, the other Vanish
ing Lady in the gallery went on with her partof the performance, and sung out in a small
squeaky voice, which I shall never forget —
“ I am here—in the gallery.”
Then the curtain was dropped, and the band
kindly began to play. I discovered afterwardsthat the mishap was not due to any fault in the
mechanism of my apparatus. The lady that
ought to have vanished was cross, because the
other vanishing lady had eaten the greater part
of a box of their chocolates that had been sent
round to the dressing-room by an unknownadmirer. Neither of them ever knew which
one was “ the ” Vanishing Lady, and so they used
to squabble about the presents that were con
stantly being sent to that mysterious individual.
One gentleman wrote to me to say that the
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The Lady Who would not Vanish 77
Vanishing Lady’s beauty and charming manners
exercised a wonderful and indescribable spelt
over him. Would I introduce him ? Both
Vanishing Ladies managed to get hold of that
note, and they then argued the question as to
which of the two was beautiful and had charming
manners, I settled the matter by telling themthat they were both too charming, and I should
be much obliged if they would go and exercise
their “wonderful and indescribable spell ” else-
where.
I have often done the Vanishing Lady Trick
since, but I use only one lady in the performance.The trick is quite as effective as it was in the old
days, and my peace of mind is assured. I am
only afraid that, at times, the trick is too realistic :
for I have frequently been asked privately, by
a male member of the audience, if I cannot vanishsome elderly and angular lady of his acquaintance
as effectually as I have vanished the lady on
the platform.Shocking, isn’t it ?
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C H A P T E R V I I
THE MAN WHO MAKES MONEY
HIS is a real woe; and you will please
to understand that I did not have it in
my mind when the photograph which you see
on the cover of this book was taken.It happened many years ago. One night I
was walking home after giving a performance
at a small village schoolroom. The moon was
shining brightly, and I tried to think that I
would not have had a cab if there had been
one, and that I would enjoy the walk. I wastrudging merrily along, and thinking what a
glorious supper I was going to have at the end
of my walk, when I was suddenly brought to a
standstill in the middle of the path.
A man had leaped out of the hedge and was
standing in front of me. It was at once evidentthat he did not mean, to allow me to pass. I
sized him up quickly, saw that he was taller
and much more powerful that I was, and decided
that discretion would be the better part of 78
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The Man Who Makes Money 79
valour in this case. For a second or two, which
seemed like hours, he did not speak ; but thenseeing me cast my eyes towards the road he
read my thoughts, and translated them instantly.
“ It’s no use your looking at the road ; you
can't get by me.”
“ What do you want ? ” I asked.
“Well,” he said slowly, “there are a goodmany things I want ; but what I want most just
now, and what I’m going to have, is money. I
have had nothing to eat all day and I’ve got
nowhere to sleep, and I've had no drink. Think
of that, you soft-hearted fur-coated ruffian ! Nothing to drink! Can you imagine what I’ve
suffered by not having anything to drink ?”
The man talked so strangely that I took
courage and looked at him in the face. The
moon shone directly into his eyes, and the bright
beams seemed reflected there. I had never seena man with such eyes ; they sparkled like
diamonds, and they seemed to have at the back
of them a weird phosphorescent light.
I asked the man how much money he wanted
and told him — what was indeed the truth — that
I was very poor, and had very little moneywith me.
“Nonsense!” he screamed. “Nonsense!
They all say that ; but they pay before I’ve
finished with them.” Then he leaned down and
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8o Woes of a Wizard
peered into my face. I felt almost hypnotised,
but as he put his face near mine I had enough
presence of mind to show no signs of being
frightened. I do not mind admitting that I
never felt more uncomfortable in my life. He
remained with his face close to mine. His
eyes were almost starting out of their socketsas he glared maliciously at me. Suddenly he
started back, and raising his hands above his
head, burst into a fit of laughter. It was some-
thing like the laughter of a hysterical woman ; the
laughter that makes you shudder. I waited for
a moment to see what could be the cause of hismerriment.
“Why,’’ he shouted; “ I’m in luck. You’re
the man that makes money ! "
“ Not very much,” I pleaded feebly. “ And
not very often.”
“Nonsense!” he shouted. “ They all say
that—all of them ! They all pretend that they
haven’t any money; but they pay before I’ve
finished with them. You — you must have heaps
of money. You’re the man that makes money ! ”
I told him as quietly and as firmly as I couldthat I felt sure he was mistaken, and that in any
case I did not quite understand him.
“Why,” he screamed, “do you lie like this?I saw you making money on Monday. You
made heaps of it, and I wanted to get some,
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The Man Who Makes Money 81
but they would not let me have it. Don’t you
remember how you made money at the big hallin Wiltenham ?"
I stepped back quickly at the mention of that
word, for I understood, at last, exactly what the
man meant. I had performed on the Monday
of that week at Wiltenham Asylum, and one
of my tricks was catching money, invisibly, in
a hat. I realised in a moment that the man
standing in front of me, and glaring down at
my face, was an escaped lunatic. Remembering
what I had often been told by doctors at
asylums—that one must never make a patientexcited —and realising also that I was in some
danger of being seriously injured, I began to
soothe the man as well as I could.
“ Oh,” said I, “I remember you now quite
well. I shall be most happy to oblige you;
but don't you think that if I begin to makemoney here, somebody else will see us perhaps,
and then they will want some too, and there
won't be so much for you.”
I was hoping that by this simple ruse I
might be able to induce the man to walk with
me along the road, and so to the next village.
He seemed to be considering the matter for
a moment, but then replied very excitedly :
“ No! no! no! We shan’t be caught here,
if you do it very quickly. Make lots of money,
6
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82 Woes of a Wizard
fill your hat full, and then give it to me. Look
at that bright shower of diamonds over thattree. Can’t you get some of those too ?’’
The moon had gone behind the cloud while
he had been speaking, and the stars shone out
brilliantly. It was to the stars that he pointed
when he asked me to get him some diamonds.I told him that I would do my best, and I
began to take off my gloves. He was eager
for me to begin at once, and kept on calling
on me to lose no time, because some one might
come along the road and then it would be too
late. If I had had any doubt as to what Iought to do, that doubt was dispelled when
the moon shone out again on to his face. It
was distorted with passion, and I turned away
sick with fear.
“ Look here,” he said, “ begin at once—at
once ; do you hear ? I’m going to sit down ; I’mtired. I’ve been walking about all day and have
had nothing to eat. Begin at once and make
me lots of money, and then give it to me and
I'll go; but if you don’t make plenty, and if
you don’t give it to me, then,” he said, with a
childish chuckle, “you shall go into that nice
little round room all to yourself.”
I knew that he referred to a padded cell.
Never before in my life had I conjured under
such strange conditions. The man sat on a
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The Man Who Makes Money 83
stile and laughed with joy directly I began. I
suppose most people have seen the trick per-formed. The conjurer holds up a silk hat with
his left hand, catches money invisibly in the
air with his right hand, throws the money
invisibly at the hat, and it is heard to fall inside.
At any time the conjurer’s hands are seen to be empty; but when he has finished, a good
pile of coins is in the hat. Every time the
man heard the chink of money, he dapped his
hands. Certainly I had never had a more
appreciative audience.
I was careful not to do the trick too quickly,and there seemed to be no reason why I should
hurry; because directly the madman saw me
begin his manner changed. He became more
quiet ; and perhaps if any one had come along
then, they would have said that a conjurer who
could perform on a cold night, in the open air,
was more likely to be insane than the man
who was watching him. After the first few
minutes I told him that my arms were getting
a little tired, and that I should like to have a
rest for a minute or two.“ Not for long, not for long.” he shouted.
And very soon I had to begin again.
“ Wait a minute,” he said. “ Let’s see how
much you’ve got.” I turned the hat towards
him and shook up the coins.
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84 Woes of a Wizard
“ All right,” he said, “ you'll do. Keep on
long enough and I shall be able to get to New
York after all.”
I do not know how long 1 continued to do the
invisible mint trick. It seemed to me to be
the longest performance I had ever given.
The moon was still shining brightly then, andmy audience and myself were visible two miles
away. My arms were getting very tired, and
I hardly knew how to go on. I was trying to
think how I should tell my audience that I had
not made quite so many half-crowns as he
had heard fall into the hat.At last I thought of a way out of the difficulty.
I made up my mind that I would gather up the
coins and throw them to him ; and then, while he
was picking them up, I would run as hard as
I could down the road. I was just debating
in my mind as to when the best time would be
to do this, when, to my joy, I heard some
footsteps, and presently, in the distance, I saw
two men walking along the road. Both the
men had long sticks, and they were prodding
the bushes and hedges as they went along. Iguessed at once that they were keepers—or
rather attendants, as the keepers at an asylum
like to be called. I shall never forget their
startled look of surprise when they saw me
standing on the side of the road and doing the
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The Man Who Makes Money 85
Money Catching Trick at three o’clock that
morning.
They realised at once that they had found
their man, and that they would have some little
difficulty in getting near him without being seen,
They motioned to me to continue my perform-
ance, and then they retraced their steps, walkedthrough the hedge, and so approached my
audience from the back.
It was an exciting time for me. I had to keep
the attention of that madman fixed on what I
was doing. Had I wavered once, or shown any
sign of the anxiety I was going through, hewould have turned his head and might then have
seen his pursuers. I closed my eyes and kept
on doing the trick mechanically ; and while my
eyes were thus closed I was suddenly startled by
a yell of rage. The man before whom I had
been performing was on his back on the field,
and a pair of handcuffs, that shone like silver in
the bright moonlight, were round his wrists.
He kicked and struggled, but all to no purpose.
His legs were bound, and one of the attendants
remained with him. The other went to theasylum, and returned in about an hour and a
half with a doctor and a conveyance. I had
been asked whether I would remain with the one
attendant while the other was away.
When the madman was safely inside the
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carriage with the two attendants and the doctor,
I was pressed to join them. I said that I
should prefer to ride with the driver.
I have often done that trick since then ; but I
can never do it, or think of it, without recalling the
awful face of that one man who remembered me
simply as “the man who makes money.”
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CHAPTER VIII
SOME QUEER REQUESTS
HILDREN always ask me to do the most
strange things ; in fact, if I could do half
what the average child thinks I can do, I should
be a happy man. Often as I am leaving achildren’s party, two or three youngsters will way-
lay me in the hall and one of them will beg me
to turn her into a rabbit, while another brings
me a toy horse and beseeches me to endow it
with life.
But not even children have ever asked me todo a trick that one lady requested me to per-
form at a charity entertainment. There were
about three hundred boys and girls, and I was
asked to produce three hundred threepenny pieces
and present one to each girl and boy. It wasrather a tall order, and you will see why, if you
take three hundred threepenny pieces and put
them all on the table at once. However, I
did it. I will not tell you how I did it, because
I may have to do it again ; but I don't mind
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88 Woes of a Wizard
letting you into this secret. I thought that therequest was so unreasonable that, instead of pass-
ing the threepenny pieces round, I handed each
one separately myself. In this way at least half
an hour of my one hour’s entertainment slipped
by ; so the lady who engaged me really did not
get quite such good value for her money as shehad expected. Still, she was quite pleased.
On another occasion I was asked to produce
a lot of small buttonholes for each member of the
audience, and then a huge bouquet for a newly
married bride who was present. I told the lady
that I had not brought any flowers with me ; and
she said : Oh, but I thought you were a
conjurer, and could make them magically.” I
believe that is one of the best testimonials I everhad in my life.
Once, when I was quite a young man, I wasasked if I could appear at a Primrose League
meeting, and, in the course of one of my tricks,
produce a large quantity of primroses. I replied
— I was very young then— that any such little
trifle as a basket or two of primroses could be
easily manipulated by a conjurer who knew his business.
On the night in question I had the primroses
arranged all nicely in a paper bag. First of all
I had arranged to produce a large flag with the
letters of the Lodge and “P.L.” in large letters
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Some Queer Requests 89
underneath. I had produced this flag, and was
waving it about to terrific applause, when some-
thing went wrong with the paper bag in which
my wet primroses were reposing. I struggled
hard to produce them correctly, but they insisted
on making their appearance prematurely, and
for the rest of the evening I shed primroses asI walked about the hall.
My friends came to me and told me that it
was the best trick that I had ever done. I
assured them that I had made a mistake, and
bungled it ; but they said that it was much more
of a success than were the tricks which I didnot bungle. I may add that the flag I used
on that occasion was painted by myself. I had
stolen a large white silk handkerchief belonging
to a near relative of mine. All the colours came
out in the wash, but the letters remained there ;and so whenever the owner of the handkerchief
wore it, he went about with “P.L.” on the back
of his neck.
I was once sent for by a grocer. I could not
understand what the grocer wanted to see me
about, unless it was that I owed him money.When I got to the shop he took me mysteriously
on one side, and told me that he felt sure that
he had been swindled by a man who had come
in and “rung the changes” on him. I asked him
what he wanted me to do, and he said that he
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had heard that I was a conjurer, and he wanted
me to stay behind the counter and play tricks
on that man, when he called again. I did not
accede to his request.
Another strange request I once had, camefrom a lady in reference to her son, who had
assisted me, in going on the stage, on the previousafternoon. She said that her son and she had
enjoyed the performance very much ; but she
thought it a great pity that I had asked her
son to tell a lie about the watch. Those of you
who have seen me do my watch trick, will
know that I ask a boy to drop a watch in a paper bag. As a matter of fact the boy does
drop the watch into the paper bag, and he can
feel that the watch is there the whole time.
I had instructed this lady’s son to drop the watch
in the bag, and had asked him to say that it
was there ; I had not told a lie or asked himto tell a lie. Therefore, in saying that the
watch was not in the bag when it was there,
and in telling his mother that I had told him
to say what was not true, that boy had lied.
Sometimes a conjurer realises that this is a
hard world.
One of the quaintest engagements I ever had,
was to appear at a pantomime played by amateur
actors and actresses. I can say, without laying
myself open to the charge of being conceited,
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Some Queer Requests 91
that the performers on the stage were much
more interested in my conjuring than they were
in their own parts. I was dressed up as the
wicked magician in “ Aladdin’s Lamp,” and I
performed for three quarters of an hour while
the action of the pantomime was delayed. At
the end of my performance I had as muchgenuine applause from the people on the stage
as I had from the people in front, and Aladdin
himself came forward and begged me to give
him an encore.
Some little time afterwards the same company
were going to play the pantomime elsewhere; but they did not engage me. I heard afterwards
that some of the people who went, thought they
had been defrauded of their money because I
was not there. You may think that I am very
conceited in telling you this ; but I am not. Isay it only to show how very bad the amateurs
were.
One of the most curious requests I ever had
made to me, was put by a landlady, in a small
provincial town. She knew, of course, that I
was connected with the company performing atthe Town Hall, but she had not realised until
after the first night that I was the man who
did the conjuring tricks. When I got home
that night I thought she seemed rather flurried,
especially when she brought in the supper. At
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92 Woes of a Wizard
last she said she hoped I would excuse her ; but
since seeing me vanish people and things she
felt rather nervous, and would I mind being very
careful with the china ornaments on the mantel-
piece, because they were wedding presents?
I do not think I succeeded in making the old
lady believe that I was not going to practiseconjuring tricks with her china ornaments, for
she kept on coming into the room, in the course
of the evening, with the feeblest excuses; on
purpose, so it seemed to me, to be quite sure
that her belongings were still safe. At one
time she thought she smelt something burning.Was the lamp quite right ? Had I rung tor
anything? Should I like anything else? What
time did I want my shaving water in the morn-
ing? What time should I like breakfast, and
did I prefer tea or coffee ? Each one of thosequestions was put on a separate visit, and at
last, in despair, I told her that what I wanted
most on earth was to be allowed to smoke a
cigar in peace. She left me very reluctantly
and I rather fancy that she waited outside the
door expecting every moment to hear me dropthe china dog, or the stuffed bird under the
glass shade. However, on the following morn-
ing she seemed quite cheerful again, and I
supposed that as she had found that I could
pass one evening in the place without breaking
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Some Queer Requests 93
up her happy home, I might be trusted to remain
there for the rest of the week.One often meets curious landladies when
touring round the country. Of course, the
lodgings that one goes to are always booked
beforehand, and the landladies are always ac
customed to theatrical and professional people.Some weird stories are related of the way in
which actors have taken their revenge on land
ladies who have been rather too anxious to get
rich quickly, at the actor’s expense. One actor,
who had been charged extra for lights, boots,
window cleaning, cruets, kitchen fire and attendance, determined that the landlady should have
cause to regret her misdeeds.
I do not know whether this story is true,
probably it is not, and I rather fancy it has
been told before somewhere; but it is reported
that this actor took his revenge by nailing a
fresh herring underneath the table. In the course
of a few days the fresh herring became no
longer fresh. Consequently, when people went
there to take the rooms, the first thing they
did was to remark on the curious smell therewas in the place. The rooms were never taken.
The landlady could not understand where the
smell came from. She “ spring-cleaned ” the
room. She had the boards taken up in the
hope of finding a dead rat or a mouse, and
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94 Woes of a Wizard
she called in the landlord and abused him for
not seeing to the drains. The landlord, whoknew quite well that the drainage system was
imperfect, and that if he was not very careful
the local authority would be down on him, agreed
that the landlady’s demands were just, and had
fresh pipes and things put in at the cost ofabout twenty-five pounds. But still the room
retained its strange scent. At last, one day, one
of the landlady’s children was playing in the
sitting-room—which no one would ever rent—
and the youngster toddled under the table, and
screamed apparently at nothing. The landladyrushed to see what was the matter. . . . But
I have no wish to harrow your feelings with
further details.
Theatrical landladies are not always active in
attending to the wants of their victims, I know
a young actor who became so exasperated witha landlady who refused to answer the bell, unless
she happened to be passing his room, that one
day he walked from the sitting-room to his bed
room and pulled at the bells as hard as he could
for five minutes. He was just beginning torealise that bell-pulling is an excellent exercise,
and that he had had nearly enough for that
day, when the landlady sauntered in.
“Did you want anything, sir?”
“Of course. I rang. I’ve been ringing
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Some Queer Requests 95
for the last five minutes. Didn’t you hear
me ? ”“ Hear you ? Hear you indeed ? Me ’usband
and I could hardly ’ear ourselves speak for the
noise. We wondered what was the matter!"
Another landlady story. This perhaps has no
place in a chapter entitled “ Queer Requests,”
and yet the landlady, who is the heroine of the
story, would tell you that theactor, who is
the other figure in the story, certainly put a
very queer request to her. It was simply this :
he asked her, as a favour, not to steal his sugar,
jam, and butter. These things were kept ina cupboard in the sitting-room. The landladywas very indignant, and protested that she never
took anything in her life, and that she was
not likely to take that man’s butter, because
she did not like it ; and as to his jam, well,
she never ate jam.Two days went by, and, though the actor felt
certain that he was being robbed, he could
not fix upon a way of trapping the land
lady. But at last he invented this trick ; andif you are staying in lodgings, and think that
the landlady is robbing you, you may find it
useful. He caught three flies, and he put one
in the butter-dish, one in the jam-jar, and one
in the sugar-basin. He put a lid on each of
these things, and so imprisoned the unfortunate
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CHAPTER IXCONFEDERATES AND MESMERISTS
I CAN imagine that I can hear some of my
very candid friends sighing as they read the
title of this chapter, and saying to themselves :
“ Now we shall hear some of the fine old crusted
yarns about confederates, that have been told
about every conjurer of any note. Devant will
father some of those anecdotes, and will try and
make us believe that he has had the experiences
himself.”Let me undeceive and disappoint these candid
friends at once. I am not going to tell you any
old yarns. I merely want to have my say about
confederates and mesmerists.
I have said elsewhere in this book that I do
not employ confederates. I repeat that state-ment now because I do not want you to forget
it, and because I am well aware that the majority
of people who think at all about conjuring tricks,
as performed on the stage, say to themselves :
“Yes, that's all very well, but you could see that97
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98 Woes of a Wizard
the man who went on to the stage is used to it.
He’s a confederate, of course.”
I always do my best to prevent people from
coming to that conclusion about our perform-
ance, but I know I do not always succeed. My
usual plan, when I require the assistance of
some member of the audience on the stage, isto ask for a man who is with friends, so that
every one in the audience may see that the man
is known to other people. I once made this
request to an audience, but no one came forward.
“ I particularly don’t want any man to come
up who is by himself,” I said. “ I want a manwho is one of a party of friends — the more the
merrier.”
At last, after a few moments’ waiting, a man
slouched out of his seat at the back of the hall,
and came towards the stage.
“ I ain’t with friends,” he said, jerking his
thumb to the back of the hall, “ they’re only my
four kids and the old woman; but if they’lldo------”
No one heard the rest of the sentence because
the audience laughed. That man unwittinglydid me a bad turn. He meant well, but his little
speech spoiled him. The audience had an idea
that he was a member of the company, “ a con-
federate, of course,” and that it was part of his
business to be a kind of clown. They were very
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Confederates and Mesmerists 99
disappointed, because he was exceptionally stupid ;
and of all the woes that a wizard has to put upwith, a stupid assistant is the worst!
Some audiences are very easily pleased. Theywill applaud enthusiastically at any little allusionto their town in the course of a trick ; and if I can
persuade them that I am really in a fix, and thata trick has gone wrong, they become almosthysterical with delight. I find that it does notalways pay to introduce politics into my patter.It does not at all follow, because I find myself infront of what I consider to be an exceptionally
bright and intelligent audience, that I shall bedoing right in making jokes about Mr. ----------- , but perhaps I had better get back to my subject—confederates.
A lady, whom I knew slightly, came to meonce after a performance, and said :
``It’s all very well for you to say on the stagethat you don’t employ confederates, but you’vegiven yourself away— in this town at any rate.”
I told her what was really the truth, that I wasvery sorry to hear it, and that I would see that
such a thing did not occur again.“I can’t make out why a (several nice ad
jectives which my modesty compels me to leaveout) man like you did not see it before. Hereyou are, with bills posted all over the townannouncing that you carry a company of twenty-
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100 Woes of a Wizard
six persons, and yet, if you count everybody up
who appears on the stage and in the orchestra,and at the doors, you can’t show that you have
a company of twenty-six. Why give yourself
away by announcing that you have a company
of twenty-six, and then showing less than that
number of persons ? Either you have not acompany of twenty-six — in which case your bills
are a fraud, — or else the company of twenty-six
is made up of confederates. Now, confess I've
caught you! ”
I was sorry to have to discourage this young
lady, because it was quite evident that she hadtaken a good deal of interest in the performances
of Maskelyne and Cooke’s Mysteries, and I like
everyone to do that. It pays so nicely when
they do. However, even at the risk of dis
appointing the lady, I had to tell her that there
was still another clue to the mystery about the
bills and the number of people in the company,
and that the secret of the whole matter was
that — clever as we were, are, and mean to be — we
cannot get on very well without money-takers, and
carpenters, and machinists, and advance agents,and a business manager. As a matter of fact,
the company of Maskelyne and Cooke’s Mysteries
is often larger than it is advertised to be.
I have said that I will not introduce any old
yarns about confederates, and I will keep to
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Confederates and Mesmerists 101
my word, but I should just like to say, beforeI get on to the second woe of this chapter, that
anyone can do conjuring tricks by employing
good confederates. A conjurer who is con
stantly performing publicly in small towns — as
we often do — would find confederates rather
more bother than they were worth. In a smalltown everybody knows everybody else, and so,
if, when the conjurer asked fur someone from
the audience to come up to the stage, Mr.
Confederate stepped forward, the majority of
people would see at once that he was a stranger
to the town, and they would naturally jump to
the conclusion that he was in league with the
conjurer.
There is one more reason why we do not
use confederates. They are old-fashioned, and
a conjurer who wishes to put a good distance between himself and the bankruptcy court must
not be old-fashioned. Improvements in tricks,
and in the method of doing tricks, are always
being thought out, and the conjurer who is not
one of the thinkers is apt to get considerably
more time for thinking than he requires.Having shown you how difficult it is to employ
confederates without running the risk of exciting
people's suspicions, I will now proceed to let you
into a few secrets, showing how confederates
can be easily employed in such a way that the
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102 Woes of a Wizard
audience do not become suspicious. This bringsme to the second woe of my chapter —mesmerists.
Mesmerists are real woes to conjurers, and you
will see why they are if you read to the end
of this chapter.
Perhaps I may as well let the cat out of the
bag at once. Well, then, there is this difference between a mesmerist — or rather, a man who
professes to give a mesmeric performance — and
a conjurer. A conjurer tells his audience, by
proclaiming that he is a conjurer, that he is
going to show them something wonderful, butsomething which can be explained by the words
“sleight-of-hand” or “illusion.” In short, the
conjurer says, in effect : “ I am going to humbug
you.” The mesmerist proceeds on different
lines. He gives you to understand that he
can mesmerise anyone, and that by employinghypnotic influence he can control the actions of
other people, and make them obey his wishes.
The mesmerist explains his performance by the
one word science, and he would be. righteously
indignant if you suggested that he was a humbug,
and that his entertainment was a piece of trickery
from beginning to end —which is precisely what
it is.
I know what you are going to say. You
have seen So-and-So and So-and-So, and you
are quite certain that their performances were
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Confederates and Mesmerists 103
genuine, because you saw men under their in-
fluence put lighted cigar ends on their barearms, and run needles into their cheeks, and
thread cotton through their tongues. “ Besides,”
you say to yourself, “Mr. So-and-So asked
anyone to come up from the audience to
be mesmerised, and several men of our owntown went up to the stage and let him send
them off and then they did all sorts of silly
things.”
I am sorry to have to disillusionise you ; but
that was all humbug, and I will now show you
how it was all done.In the first place, a man who is going to
give a series of mesmeric performances through
out the country, has to take with him several
men, trained for the work, who are called
mediums. They are never really hypnotised;
it is not necessary that they should be, because
these men are good actors, and they probably
make more sacrifices for their work than any
other members of the profession. These men
have taught themselves how to endure pain
without flinching. A lighted cigar laid on their bare arm causes them no inconvenience. They
have got used to it. A needle stuck into the
arm does not cause so much pain as you would
imagine. These men have a knack of pinching
up a little piece of the arm into which the
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Confederates and Mesmerists 105
experiment two nights running, but tine people
might get a little suspicious if they heard after-
wards that he had been anxious to put a lighted
cigar on his arm for three nights in succession.
In addition to these ``mediums in advance,”
the mesmerist will have two or three similar
men in his company, but always travellingseparately. It is understood that any two
mediums who are seen talking to each other,
or travelling with each other, or lodging together,
will be instantly dismissed. There is always
a temptation for the mediums to lodge under the
same roof, because by so doing they get theirlodgings more cheaply than if they go to differenthouses.
The mesmerist who is really a good showman
recognises, however, that there are occasions
when he must put forth better efforts to hoodwink
the public. There are times when, to establish
complete confidence in his show, he must secure
confederates in the town in which he is performing,
and he must get them, and engage them, and
pay them, and do all this in such a way that
it will not be in the power of anyone of theseconfederates to turn round afterwards and say:
“That man bribed me to come on to the stage
and deceive the public.”
It will be seen that the mesmerist has a difficult
task before him. This is how he gets through it.
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Confederates and Mesmerists 107
merist to the medium. If the loafer is absolutely
devoid of common sense, he will move his arm
when the mesmerist “ suggests ” that he cannot
move it, and, of course, in that case, the man
is hopeless and is dismissed. In most cases,
however, the loafer quickly realises that by doing
what the mesmerist “suggests” he shall dounder the imaginary hypnotic influence, he will
get an engagement to appear that evening for
half a crown.
That is exactly how it is done, and you will
sec that the loafer-medium cannot give the show
away afterwards. He cannot say that the
mesmerist did not experiment with him, and
did not succeed in mesmerising him. If he
confesses that he was shamming at the trial
by the mesmerist, then the loafer-medium stands
confessed to having practised a fraud on themesmerist, by pretending to be mesmerised when
he was not in that state.
Occasionally the regular mediums quarrel with
the mesmerist— not often, because the pay is
good and the work light — and then perhaps they
will try and take their revenge on the mesmerist by giving him away in the very town in which
he is performing. The gullibility of the public
is so great, however, that they have great
difficulty in doing this. A professional medium
will go to a public-house, tell the landlord his
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story, and to prove that it is true, and that
he can stand the pain of having a lighted cigar
laid on his arm and needles stuck into his calf,
he will submit to those experiments there and
then. Perhaps the landlord will allow the
medium to entertain his customers by showing
the experiment. Do you know what happensthen ? If you think that the mesmerist is given
away, and that he has to fly from the town in
order to prevent himself from being mobbed
by the people, you are very much mistaken.
The medium who has quarrelled with his
employer does not get his revenge so easily, for
when he has told his story in the public-house,
every member of his little audience will
say :
“ Ah, that’s all very well for you to do those
things now; but you were mesmerised rightenough when we saw you at the hall last
night.”
The public refuse to be enlightened, even when
the right man is there to do the work. I hope
I may be successful where the professional
medium fails.I have been assured by a doctor that the pain
of having needles stuck into one’s arm is not
nearly so acute as one would imagine ; in fact,
that directly the skin is pierced very little pain
is felt, especially if the needles are very sharp
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Confederates and Mesmerists 109
and are inserted—as they always are—very
quickly.I can scarcely hope that the following story
will be believed, but it is absolutely true in all
its details, and I could, if necessary, produce one
of the chief actors in it. I tell it here to show
what an extraordinary amount of pain the regular
mediums of the travelling mesmerist can endure
without flinching.
A certain mesmerist had elaborated his per-
formance very cleverly. He had one medium
who could speak very well. This medium was
an educated man, an old 'Varsity man, and heis now one of our most successful comedians.
As a medium, he found an easy way of earning
a living. The mesmerist would suggest— before
he put him under the influence — that he should
make a speech on — say, the Home Rule Bill.
Of course the medium would hesitate, and stutterout that he did not take any interest in politics.
Then the mesmerist would do his sham passes,
and would suggest to the medium that now he
could speak very well on the Home Rule Bill,
and the medium would forthwith deliver an im-
passioned speech.
By having this man who could speak well,
and a juggler who was not quite good enough
for a public performer, and a few acrobats, this
mesmerist could give a marvellous performance.
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110 Woes of a Wizard
One day, however, there was an accident on the
stage with the acrobats. They used to finishthe performance by making a pyramid on the
stage. On the occasion to which I refer, one
of the men fell and hurt himself badly. He
yelled with the pain. The mesmerist grasped
the situation at once, and whispered to him :
“Be quiet, and there’s five pounds for you
after the show, and I’ll look after you and your
family, if you have to go into the hospital.”
To the audience the mesmerist said :
“ Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a
slight accident; I shall now be able to give you practical proof of the value of hypnotic influence.
This man has hurt himself, and you heard him
shriek with the pain, which I know must have
been very real. I have just put him once more
under my influence ” — here the mesmerist made
a few more passes—“and he will assure youthat he feels nothing. You feel nothing ? ”
“ Nothing at all,” said the medium with a
smile.
“ But, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the
mesmerist, “ I cannot keep this on very long
now. It would not be fair to the man. He is
going to the hospital, and if you want the testi-
mony of the doctors there to the value of hypnotic
influence, I have no doubt that they will be able
to give it.”
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Confederates and Mesmerists 111
The curtain was lowered, and crowds of people
flocked to the local hospital. By this time themesmerist had telephoned to every doctor in the
neighbourhood, and there was quite a procession
of carriages on the road to the hospital. To
cut a long story short, the injured man — he had
broken his leg—was undressed and put to bed,
and his leg was set. The man was supposed
to be under the influence of the mesmerist all
the time, and he never flinched once the whole
time. All those doctors were taken in by the
mesmerist, and for the rest of his engagement
he did enormous business.Some months afterwards, when business was
not so good, and the injured medium had re-
turned to the company, the mesmerist whispered
to him on the stage one evening L
“ Bill, you couldn’t manage to break your
blooming leg again, could you? I’d make itworth your while. Same terms as before.”
At that time Bill was prosperous and he did
not want to break his leg, and so the mesmerist
had to be content without that advertisement.
Bill is not so prosperous now, but I do not think
that anything would tempt him to go through
such a performance again. When he told me
the story, he said that he could nearly cry at the
very thought of the pain he put up with for five
pounds and his pay, and a month in the hospital.
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112 Woes of a Wizard
I trust that you will now see why I have
included mesmerists in the “Woes of a Wizard.”
The wizard tells you that he is a trickster, and
that he is going to take you in with his tricks.
The mesmerist professes to do his hypnotic
experiments scientifically, and from the moment
he steps on to the stage till the moment thecurtain is lowered the mesmerist is a trickster
of the worst kind. He is deceiving the public
while professing to do something else.
I do not like to see the public gulled in this
way ; hence this chapter.
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CHAPTER X
A REAL ROMANCE
I HAVE often been asked whether I have
ever performed under trying circumstances.
I do not like to tell the good people who put
that question to me that there is no politeadjective which quite describes some of the
difficulties I have had to contend with. What
do you say, for instance, to doing conjuring
tricks when you are nearly doubled up with
rheumatism ? I have often done that. I re-member, on one occasion, I was announced to
perform at a hydro at Buxton, This was many
years ago. I had been staying in Buxton in
order to try and cure my rheumatism. On the
evening that I was to perform I was thinking that
Buxton, as a cure for rheumatism, was a perfectamateur at the game. I have no doubt that I
should have regretted exceedingly that I had spent
so much good money to no purpose, if I had
happened to have paid my hotel bill.
If you read that last sentence very carefully, you113 8
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114 Woes of a Wizard
may discover why I could not cancel my engage-
ment at the hydro; although my rheumatismhad had a good try at making me give up con-
juring for the time. It seemed to me that the
town of Buxton resented the use to which Iwas putting it. It seemed to be saying to me :
“ Look here ; we don’t mind curing your rheuma-
tism, but we don’t do that sort of thing for
nothing. Everybody who comes here pays an
awful lot for the privilege ; why should you try
and make money out of us ? ”
1 have often heard of public performers who
have boasted that they have appeared in public,at times when they would rather have done
anything else, simply — so they have said—
because they did not want “ to disappoint the
public.’' I cannot say that I had any such
regard for the feelings of the public. The only
part of the public that I did not wish todisappoint was my landlord ; and as I imagined
that if I did disappoint him he would not take
his troubles lying down, I decided that I must
go through with the conjuring.
Had I been able to get the money I wanted
in any other way, I would have risked disappoint-
ing the public by not performing before them.
I would cheerfully have left them there in the
hydro, lamenting that their great opportunity for
seeing me was gone, and might never return.
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A Real Romance 115
I would have turned my back on the dear public,and would have ignored them altogether ; only, yousee, I wanted the good gold that the kind publicwas going to pay to see me. When I hear ofsome great man — usually an actor or a musician
going on to a stage or platform when he does
not want to, and giving his show just becausehe does not wish “to disappoint the public,”I feel that I must get away in a corner all tomyself, and snigger.
But to return to my hydro. My rheumatismwas so painful that I had to he wheeled to the place in a bath-chair. Unfortunately for me, onedear old lady, who afterwards sat in the frontrow at my performance, saw me get out of the
bath-chair. The lady was deaf, and, therefore,when she thought that she was talking in a
whisper, she was really speaking in the tone ofvoice that you would use if you wanted to frightenthe birds away from your ripe strawberries. Youcould hear that old lady shouting all over theroom, and this is what she thought she waswhispering to the lady on her right :
“ My dear, how does he do it ? ” (I was takingsome eggs out of my mouth.) “ I'm sure he’s ill,and in pain. I saw him get out of a bath-chair.It must hurt him to take all those eggs out ofhis mouth. See what awful faces he’s making.’'
Perhaps some of my readers, who have seen
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116 Woes of a Wizard
me do that trick, may remember that when I takethe eggs out of my mouth, I pretend that the
operation is extremely painful. As a matter of
fact the grimaces I make are quite realistic.
Once when I was having a tooth out, I caught
sight of myself in the glass, and every time I do
my egg trick I reproduce the expression I sawon my face, when the dentist was attacking me.
The dear old lady at the hydro was quite right.
I was hurting myself horribly by performing, and
I suppose my expression of pain was too much like
the real thing. As a matter of fact, there wasno deception whatever about it. When I heard
the dear old lady condoling with me, my pain
grew worse, because I knew from experience that
the last thing a public performer may do is to
allow his audience to see that he is not in his
tip-top best form. Once let the public, in frontof you, get the idea that you are performing
simply because they have paid to come in and
see you, and that you do not want to perform,
and you make yourself a failure at once. The
public like to think that your performance amuses
you as much as it does them.
Perhaps it does sometimes. The public also
expects that you shall always be at your best; and
if you are not at your best, the public thinks
that it has been defrauded of part of its money.
I have heard it suggested that the public, in doing
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A Real Romance 117
this, are very hard-hearted and exacting. Per
sonally I do not think that they are anything of
the kind. They have paid their money in the
expectation of being entertained ; and if they are
not amused, they have a perfect right to be cross
at having spent their money badly. Whether, in
this case, the entertainer ought conscientiously toreturn the money at the doors, as the public go
out, is a matter so serious that I cannot bear to
think of it. I may add that I have never felt
myself called upon to return any money.
My performance, on the particular night to
which I refer, was an absolute failure. It gotabout that I was ill, and immediately the audience
settled among themselves that I was a wretched
conjurer. I can say, without any hope of
being contradicted, that on that particular night
the audience were quite right. Every time I
worked in a joke the members of the audience
looked at each other, and then the old lady
shouted : “ Shocking ! How does he manage
to keep It up ? I think it’s too bad to expect
him to go on,`` I noticed that the lady showed
no inclination to go herself. Every time I cameon to the platform I could hear her remarking
that I looked worse and worse, and she was sure
I should not last out the evening. I am afraid
I disappointed the old lady.
The performances at the hydro were not
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120 Woes of a Wizard
after that, and after that; but that I might call
until I was a grey-headed, doddering old man
and she would not marry me. I shook my
auburn locks— I had a lot of auburn locks then —
crushed my soft felt hat down on my head and
repeated my determination to call on that day
next year.The year went by too quickly. I did not
forget the lady whom I had honoured by asking
to be my wife ; but when the day was fast
approaching when I should have to ask her
for the second time or break my word, I
found that I was absolutely and entirely withoutmoney.
The lady lived at a popular seaside place
some distance from London. I could not borrow
the money for the train fare, because I had always
had a strong objection to getting into debt ; and,
besides, I did not know anyone who would
advance me the sovereign without a better
security than I could offer. At last, in my despair,
I made up my mind what I would do. I stole
away from my home, went to a friend’s house,
and blacked my face with burnt cork. I hadmanaged to scrape enough money together just
to pay for the excursion ticket, but I had realised
that in all probability, in the joy of seeing me
again and hearing me renew my declaration of
love, the young lady would be so overpowered
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A Real Romance 121
by her emotion that she would want to go out
and have lunch with me— a large lunch—and
perhaps a drive on the sea-front in the after
noon.
Well, when I had blacked my face I knew that
I should be able to get that extra money, I
did what I had never done before and have neverdone since. I did conjuring tricks in the train
going down ; on the beach when I got there ; and
in the train coming back.It is not easy to do conjuring tricks in a
railway train ; but I seemed to be in luck that
morning, for the train stopped pretty frequently.When it did, I jumped out of one third class
carriage and into another, and in this way I had
several changes of audience during the morning.
I did the cup-and-balls trick. I suppose that I
must have got somewhat careless towards theend of the morning, because I know that once
the train stopped suddenly and jerked me and
my little table and my tricks all over the
carriage.
A child who saw a ball disappear under the
seat thought it was part of the programme,and insisted on my getting the ball back again
without getting under the seat myself. I saw
an opportunity here of doing a good trick. I
rolled up my sleeve, put my hand under the
seat to get the ball, at the same time telling the
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122 Woes of a Wizard
child that she had made a mistake, and had not
seen a ball roll there. She contradicted me, and
I was about to show her that she had been
mistaken, and that what she had really seen was
a young rabbit, when I felt my arm pounced
upon by a brute of a dog that had been lying
under the seat. It was true that I producedthe rabbit; but it was painfully evident that the
rabbit wished I had produced something else.
The dog took a keen, intelligent interest in
the rest of the performance. I think he ex
pected me to produce a few more rabbits for
him.When I got down to the seaside I went on
to the beach, set up my table, and began to
perform. In the innocence of my young heart
I had not troubled to find out that it was neces
sary to get permission from the town authorities,
before I could perform on the beach. That is
why a policeman moved me on six times in the
first hour, and said that if I did not clear off I
should know what would happen.
By that time I had taken, altogether, about
a sovereign ; and so I thought I might reasonablygo to the young lady once more and repeat my
proposal.
First of all I had to go away in a quiet corner
and wash the burnt cork off my face, and leave
my table and tricks in a cloak-room. Having
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124 Woes of a Wizard
that morning, and so I just waited silently while
he fetched his “missus,” She had been washingsomething in the scullery. Her sleeves were
rolled up to her elbow and smelt of soap-suds.
When she saw me she pretended, at first, that
she did not remember me, and then I caught
her in the act of tapping her forehead, and
motioning to her husband. He was kind enough
to suggest that perhaps I would come and have
tea with them ; and he even went so far as to
hint that he knew of a place where some specially
good shrimps were to be bought for a mere
nothing. I don’t think I heard anything else thathe said, because I was thinking of what would
happen if he recognised in me the Christie
Minstrel Conjurer he had moved on on the beach
in the morning. At last I said that they were
very kind, but I had some friends in the town,
and I would go to them and come back andhave tea. The policeman shook me by the
hand warmly, and said that he would be very
pleased to see me again. My fair charmer
also shook me by the hand — and it was very
soapy!
I did not go back there again. When I said
I would, I deliberately and intentionally lied
to the good people. I roamed about on the
beach and caught the heavy cold to which
I have alluded. That is the only lie I have
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A Real Romance 125
ever told in my life, and I am very sorry
for it.
Can you imagine that any conjurer has had a
greater disappointment than that which I ex-
perienced when I was the chief figure in this
“ Real Romance ” ?
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C H A P T E R X I
A FEW PUPILS
NE morning I was visited by a gentleman
in a great state of excitement, who sent
In his card with the request that he wished to
see me on very particular business. When hecame into the room, he immediately began asking
what were my terms for lessons, and when I
could begin to teach.
“ It’s a very serious case now,” he said, “and
I should like you to begin at once.”
Thinking that the man was slightly mad—
I have often been visited by madmen —I stepped
back a little and asked him what case it was
that was so serious. Then he burst out laughing
and said that, of course, I did not understand.
He went on to explain that it was not he whowanted the lessons; his wife wanted them.
Even then I could not understand why the
case should be so serious. At last he confessed
to me that his wife had seen my performance ;
had come back mystified ; and had not slept
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A Few Pupils 127
since that day for thinking how some of my
tricks were done.“The fact is, my dear sir,” he said, “ my wife
is suffering from an attack of violent curiosity.
She does not really take an intelligent interest
either in you, or your tricks ; she's simply mad
because she doesn't know the secrets, and thedoctor tells me that during the last week she
has been knocking herself up through the worry
of not being able to satisfy her own curiosity.”
He then asked me whether I would go and
give his wife the lessons.
I gave that lady five or six lessons, but Ido not believe that she ever paid the slightest
attention to them, after the first five minutes.
All she wanted to know was how each trick
was done. Directly I had given her that
information she showed scarcely any interest in
the lesson ; but occasionally she would assureme that the trick could not possibly be done in
the way I said it was done.
On another occasion a man came to me and
said he very much wanted to learn how to do
a few tricks. He said that his wife was a very
great vocalist; his daughters played the piano,
the violin, and recited ; and whenever they went
out he really felt out of it. He said he used
to have to go on the stage and screw the
music-stool up, and open the piano, and shift
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128 Woes of a Wizard
the piano whenever they wanted him to, and
generally act as a kind of upper servant. He
thought that if he learnt a few conjuring tricks
he might do something on the stage.
This man really had a good idea of how some
tricks were performed. What he wanted me
to do was to give him a few lessons, so that hemight be absolutely certain of doing the things
properly. He was a middle-aged man, and he
had never before attempted anything of the kind.
The first time I went to his house I noticed
that my arrival caused a great deal of commotion.
My new pupil was a long time in making hisappearance ; and when he burst into the room,
rather hot and flurried, he excused himself for
keeping me waiting by saying that his wife had
wanted to see him on very important business.
During the lesson my pupil's wife came in to
interrupt us three or four times, and at subsequent lessons she never let us alone. I used to
see her and her daughters peeping round the
corners, and through curtains and windows, to
see the pupil receiving his instructions.
I could not help noticing, too, that whenever,
in the course of the lesson, I wanted a sheet of
paper, or a glass, or some lumps of sugar, or a
jug of cold water, or any other trifle like that,
my pupil always seemed to have some little
difficulty in getting what he wanted. He
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A Few Pupils 129
generally returned with the particular article I
had asked for in the course of the trick I was
teaching ; but he was always very hot and flurried
when he came back, and always appeared to
have had a long argument with some one. I
could not understand what was the secret of this
little mystery ; but it was soon revealed to me.Just as I was setting out for one lesson, I
received a hastily written letter from my pupil.
He said that he could not look me in the face,
but, at the same time, it was quite impossible for
him to go on having any more lessons. He said
that it was difficult for him to explain ; but thefact of the matter was, he had a wife and
daughters who were of the opinion that he would
never learn to do conjuring tricks without making
a fool of himself, and they had so worried him
not to have lessons, and to give up all idea of
having lessons, that, at last, simply to get a little
peace in his house, he had decided to comply
with their requests. Therefore, he could not
have any more lessons, and he was very sorry,
and hoped I would understand. From what I
saw of that pupil I am inclined to think that hewould have made a very good conjurer. As to
his qualities as a married man I will be discreetly
silent. He will probably read this book ; in
which case I hope he will forgive me for relating
this story.
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130 Woes of a Wizard
The smartest pupil I ever had was a doctor,
who came to me for some finishing lessons. I
had impressed on him the importance of making
all the movements with his hands as naturally as
possible, and he thanked me for that good advice.
When I was on my way to another engagement,
I put my fingers into my waistcoat pocket totake out some money for a cab fare, and found,
to my surprise, that instead of a guinea — which
I should have received from my pupil—I had
only two shillings. My pupil had taken me at
my word ; and when he changed his sovereign, and
substituted the shilling, the movements of hishands had certainly been natural. I ought to
add, in justice to him, that when I got home again
I found a note awaiting me with a cheque for
a sovereign inside it; and I do not think I have
ever given a pupil so much genuine pleasureas I did to that one, by allowing myself to be
caught napping.
Many people come to me and ask me to teach
them one trick. I suggest to them that they
may find themselves in a little difficulty. If they
do the tricks well they will get encored, andif they do not know any other tricks they will
not be able to respond ; while, on the other
hand, if they don’t do the trick well no one will
ever want to see them again. I suggested this
once to a young man who replied that he could
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A Few Pupils 131
easily get over that difficulty. If the people
encored him he would do the trick over again.
Perhaps you will not see the point of that joke ;
in which case I may tell you that a good con-
jurer would as soon think of whistling at his
mother-in-law’s funeral, as he would of doing one
trick twice over in the same evening, unless, ofcourse, he adopted quite a new principle for
the second performance.
I once had a very enthusiastic pupil. He
insisted on my experimenting with him in some
very interesting problems in black magic. In
order to carry out our series of illusions, we rehearsed some of them in the garden, and part
of my pupil’s furniture had to be moved from
the house on to the lawn at the back. It was
not until we had got into the middle of a very
interesting rehearsal that we discovered that
every window of the adjoining houses, from
which a view of us could be obtained, was filled
with curious faces. Later on in the afternoon
an agent of the landlord called to see my pupil.
The agent was rather surprised at seeing my
pupil there, and said :“ Oh, you are here, then. They told me you
were moving.”
My pupil assured the agent that the report
was entirely false. It appeared that some
one had been to the landlord and had told
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132 Woes of a Wizard
him that my pupil was “shooting the moon”
in broad daylight. The landlord's agent had
expected to find the dining-room table being
carried gingerly over the garden wall, and the
drawing-room chairs hidden away behind a couple
of evergreen bushes. I assured the landlord’s
agent that a conjurer would not be quite sofoolish as to move his household goods by day
light.
Then my pupil chimed in and told the land
lord’s agent that it would be quite easy for a
conjurer to vanish any particular article of
furniture, when he made up his mind to do so.The landlord's agent seemed rather impressed
by this, and entered into a long conversation with
us about some of the principles of conjuring.
When he rose to go, he seemed to be rather in
a hurry, and instead of going back through the
house he went out at the garden gate. At the
same moment we heard a terrific rapping at
the front door of the house, and going in we
discovered two policemen on the door-step.
We then found that the landlord’s agent was
not the landlord’s agent ; that he was the partner in a firm of very clever burglars ; and that
he had been told off to keep us amused in the
large garden at the back of the house, while
his principal partner got into the front of the
house and did the vanishing trick with a large
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A Few Pupils 133
quantity of silver. The burglar had been seenleaving the house by the police, and they had
given chase, but had been unable to find him.
My pupil took the matter very philosophically
and said that it served him right for bragging
about the abilities of a conjurer. He also looked
at me in a way that betokened distrust. Ifancy he considered that I ought to have known
that the landlord’s agent was not the landlord’s
agent.
I once got the credit for giving a lesson which
I never gave. As a child I used to be rather
fond of ventriloquism, and I used to amuse thefamily by my attempts at imitating people. One
day a boy came to me and asked me to give him
a lesson in ventriloquism — I was not more than
a boy myself then — and my brother told him that
he should observe the way in which I held mymouth while I made the sound appear to come
from the roof or the cellar.
At that moment a fearful screech was heard,
and then a low moan. Directly this ceased, the
company heard the me-owing of a cat, and they
all said that it was the best imitation of a catthey had ever heard. I encouraged them in
this belief. At last the sound died away, and
they all came round and congratulated me upon
my splendid success, and asked me how I
did it.
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134 Woes of a Wizard
I told them that it was quite simple. All theyhad to do was to get a cat and make it me-ow,
and then imitate the sound. No sooner had
I said this than my friends were startled out of
their wits by a fiendish shriek, which they said
was unlike any cat they had ever heard. I told
them that they did not understand cats, and thatthe shriek was quite natural. They replied
that I had been trying to do too much; that
the first imitations were all right; but the second
were no use.
“ There,” they said, as the me-owing started
again, “ that’s more like the real thing.”
My friend went away and thanked me for
the lesson, and said I was the most wonderful
ventriloquist he had ever heard. When they
told him afterwards that the man who had been
to see after the gas had taken up a couple of boards in our dining-room, and that the cat had
somehow jumped down the hole and had been
imprisoned there for twenty-four hours, my pupil
wrote to say that I was an absolute fraud.
Sometimes I think he was right.
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CHAPTER XII
MINOR WOES
CONJURER very often has a good deal
to put up with, in the course of his
performance. To begin with the conjurer
always runs a certain risk, when he asks some-
one to assist him by coming on the stage, of
getting a man who tries to be funny at the
conjurer’s expense,
I once had a man who began tapping thestage with his foot directly he arrived upon it.
I had asked him to come up and hold a paper bag ;
but whether it was that he thought I was going
to play a trick on him — a thing I never do on
anyone whom I ask to come on the stage— or
whether it was he was really nervous ; or whetherit was that he was simply trying to be funny
and to amuse his friends in the audience, I never
knew ; but he pointblank refused to do what
I asked him to do, and kept on tapping the
stage with his foot. At last the audience got135
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136 Woes of a Wizard
as tired of him as I was, and he had to go
back again.
The man who wants to be funny never gives
the conjurer a chance. Just as you have got
him to do what you want, and have secured the
complete attention of the audience, the man will
look round and pretend to be extremely nervous.Sometimes he will assure you that the watch
really is not in his pocket ; that he has not seen
it ; that he doesn’t want it ; that he hopes you
won’t give it to him. I have only one way
of dealing with men like that. It is hopeless
to continue the entertainment, and so I suggestthat when he has finished entertaining his friends
and the rest of the company I will go on. That
plan usually succeeds.
Then again, the unfortunate conjurer often
finds the audience reluctant to assist him in a
trick. Sometimes I do a trick that necessitates
my going amongst the audience, and asking
ladies if they will write down figures on pieces
of paper. It seems an easy matter. I have
a piece of paper and a pencil in my hand, ready
to offer to the first lady who says that she willwrite three figures on the paper, and yet I often
have the greatest difficulty in persuading a lady
to take the piece of paper and pencil out of my
hand,
The strange part of it is that when one
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Minor Woes 137
lady has taken the first piece of paper, and the
first pencil, I never have any difficulty in getting
several ladies to take the remainder of the papers.
It seems to me, in this little matter as in others,
a lady is not happy until someone else has set
the fashion, and then she is only too eager to
follow it.I used to experience a certain amount of
trouble at performances for charitable institutions.
Sometimes I arrived at a hall ready to begin,
and found that the vicar, who had arranged the
entertainment, had considered it necessary that
there should be a short service, both before andafter my entertainment. It always seemed to
me to be a little incongruous to hear conversation
like this :
“ Has he come ? ”
Yes, and he says he’s all ready to begin.”
“ Oh ! ” turnings to the audience in front of him.
“ Children, Mr. Devant has come, so we will
now begin by singing a hymn — the first hymn
on the paper."
At the conclusion of the performance, the vicar
would sometimes begin a little moral sermon, anduse my conjuring tricks as a text. At one time
I used to hear the same sermon from different
men so often that I got quite tired of it. It
used to come out something like this :
“ Now, dear children, you have seen Mr.
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138 Woes of a Wizard
Devant perform some marvellous tricks. He
has done things which seem almost impossible;they are mysteries to us. But, my dear children,
there are other mysteries in the world which
are equally inexplicable. There is the mystery
of ----- ” and then would follow a long catalogue
of childish sins.On one occasion the clergyman went one
better than this. He said, speaking of my
entertainment:
“ Now, my dear children, you have seen some
marvellous tricks, so wonderful indeed that they
amount almost to miracles ; but if you would readof something still more wonderful; if you would
read of some real miracles, let me entreat you
to turn to your Bibles."
I am a reverent man, and I thought that that
appeal was not quite in the best of taste.
At the end of some of these charitable perform-
ances the vicar or teacher would get up and
propose a vote of thanks to the conjurer. He
would say:
“ Now, children, you have seen Mr. Devant’s
conjuring entertainment. I am sure it is verygood of Mr. Devant to come all the way down
here from Piccadilly, on purpose to amuse you
for just one hour. The weather is so cold that
I am sure Mr. Devant must have had a most
uncomfortable journey; but we are all exceedingly
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Minor Woes 139
grateful to him for coming here, and we hope
to see him again. Now I want you all to
say with me ‘ Thank you very much. Good
night
After that there would be : “ One, two, three—
now! ’’ and then a chorus of squeaky little voices,
all saying : “ Thank you very much. Good-night.”On those occasions I always felt uncommonly
like a hypocrite, because although the weather
may have been cold, and the journey may have
been tiresome, Mr. Devant did not go to the
place entirely because he wished to amuse the
children. There was a certain fee which wasslipped into his hand as he left the hall. Still,
as it pleased these good people to let the children
think that I was so exceedingly generous, it was
not any business of mine to try and destroy
the good opinion they entertained towards me.I always had a nice little speech ready, in which
I told them I was very pleased to come,—which
was quite true; and I hoped I should see
them again,—which was equally true ; and then
I wished them a very good-night.
At some performances of this kind the childrenwere very badly behaved. The moment I had
begun there would be a chorus of “ He’s got
it up his sleeve,” or “ We’ve seen that before,”
or “If he doesn’t take care he’ll drop it.” I
have gone into halls where that has been going
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140 Woes of a Wizard
on, and the unfortunate conjurer on the stage
has not been able to make himself heard, I
usually found, when I had to perform before such
children, that I could secure absolute silence by
threatening to stop the entertainment, and to
go away directly anyone of them spoke. Of
course I had not the slightest intention of doinganything of the kind, because, after all, people
do not pay a conjurer to go away. But this
harmless deception always produced the desired
effect.
Sometimes the teachers of the children would
take upon themselves to preserve very strictorder, and would ask me beforehand not to
interfere. Consequently, sometimes, just as I
was getting into the exciting part of the trick
and was about to produce a rabbit out of a silk
handkerchief, the teacher would come forward
and say :
“ Excuse me, do you mind waiting just one
moment ? Thank you. Now then, Johnnie
Blinkings, come here. If you can’t behave
yourself better than that you had better go home.
Stand on the form,”At other times Johnnie Blinkings, or a boy
just like him, would be called up to receive
corporal punishment, and would be returned to
his seat dissolved in tears. Then the teacher
would look round smiling at me and say :
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Minor Woes 141
“Thank you, Mr. Devant, now if you would
continue I should be very much obliged.”It used to make the tricks fall rather flat when
they did that.
I have occasionally suffered a few woes at the
hands of my assistant. I remember on one
occasion I was performing the box trick before avery large audience in the Midlands, an audience
composed principally of people who worked in
factories, and who were exceedingly keen on
discovering how the box trick was done. My
assistant had got into the box ; the box was
placed on an ordinary chair; the curtain was pulled in front of it, and I turned to the audience
and explained that I would endeavour to amuse
them with a little experiment in sleight-of-hand
while the man was getting invisibly out of his
box, and vanishing into space. Upon this par
ticular occasion when I returned to the box I
thought it felt unusually heavy. However, it
was too late then to tell the audience that I
was afraid that the man had not vanished. The
cords were undone, the wrapper was taken off,
the box was unlocked, and there was my assistantfast asleep inside. I discovered afterwards that
the man had been dining not wisely but too
well, and that that was why he had fallen asleep.
He never fell asleep in the box again, because
he never had the chance to get inside it.
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142 Woes of a Wizard
The remembrance of that mishap with a box
reminds me of another that I once had to endure.I related the story in the last Christmas number
of To-day and I reproduce it here by kind
permission of the editor of that paper. The
story relates to an event that happened two or
three years ago. It was soon after Mr.Maskelyne’s famous box trick case had been
decided. With the permission of Mr. Maskelyne,
I was presenting the wonderful box trick in
the country. At one town I visited I was the
guest of a very old friend of mine, who was
much interested in magic of all kinds, and, justto please him and to amuse his friends, I gave
a private performance at his house one night.
He had suggested that the box trick could not
be done at a private house, and, to convince
him that he was wrong, I brought the box and
my assistant with me, and we did the trick inmy friend’s drawing-room. Afterwards, everyone
crowded round and bombarded me with ques
tions, and I suppose it was because I had been
talking so much about the box that when I
went to bed I dreamt about the box trick. My
dreams were of the most awful description.
Everyone in the dream had discovered how
the box trick was done, and I was being laughed
at by jeering crowds. At other times in the
dream I was shut in the box by myself, and
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Minor Woes 143
was powerless to. get out, although I had pro
vided myself with a hatchet and hand saw.
Then the dream was changed, and I found,
to my horror, that, although my assistant had
got out of the box, someone else had managed
to get into it, and then, as fast as one man
escaped from the box, another man got insideit — in a most mysterious way.
At length my dreams ended abruptly, and
I woke up to find a burglar standing over me
with a revolver. I pinched myself hard, so
as to make quite sure that the burglar was
not part of the dream, and then I sat up.The burglar covered my movement with his
revolver.
“ Speak once,” he whispered, “ and you’ll
never speak again.”
Not having any wish to make him carry outhis threat, I did not speak. Then he said that
if I attempted to escape by the door or window,
he would shoot point-blank at my head. I had
the pleasure of seeing him take a little loose
gold from one of my pockets, and then I had
still greater pleasure in seeing him bark hisshins on the famous box, which stood open at
the foot of the bed.After he had sworn softly to himself, an idea
suddenly seemed to occur to him. He motioned
to me to get into the box. While I was
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144 Woes of a Wizard
obeying—under cover of his revolver —he took
the key from the lock.“ Head down,” he whispered gruffly ; “ go on.”
Then he pulled the lid of the box down, put
the key in the lock, turned it, and took the
key away.
A moment afterwards I found myself being-lifted up, and before I had time to imagine what
the burglar was going to do with me, I was
deposited on the bed. People who have seen
the box trick will not need to be told that the
burglar had hardly closed the door behind him
before I had escaped from the box. Then Ifound my own revolver, and went downstairs
after the burglar. He seemed uncommonly
surprised to see me.
“ Hands up,” I whispered.
Somewhat to my surprise, he put his hands up
without even trying to get at his own revolver.
Then I made him walk backwards into my
bedroom.
“ Get into that box,” I whispered.
He quickly stepped into the box, and did not
remonstrate when I locked him in. The nextthing to do was to cover the box with the
bedclothes, so that my burglar should not alarm
the household. Then I dressed, slipped noise
lessly downstairs to my host’s room, and woke
him up. He seemed quite delighted at the idea
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Minor Woes 145
of the box being of some real use in assisting
me to catch the burglar, and insisted on accom panying me in my search for a policeman.
We obtained the services of a sergeant, who
was simply radiant at the idea of catching a
burglar so neatly. But, to our great surprise,
when we were all in my bedroom, we foundthat the bird had flown! The box was there,
properly locked, but the burglar had vanished.
The police-sergeant thought we were playing
a trick on him.
“ You asked me to come and arrest a
burglar,” he said. “Kindly produce your burglar.”
“ I wish to goodness I could,” I replied. “ I
would not let a man like that escape for worlds.”
“You’re sure there was a burglar?” said
the sergeant, looking at me very suspiciously.
I don’t quite remember all I said to that
police-sergeant, but I know that my host apolo
gised for my unintelligible explanation, and
suggested that we should search the house.“ No,” said the police-sergeant, “ you said the
burglar was in that box. Where is he?”Then I had to eat humble pie, and explain
that the burglar had evidently discovered the
secret of the great box trick ; that was how he
had managed to escape. I could see, even then,
that the police-sergeant did not believe me,
10
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146 Woes of a Wizard
although I was in such a state of utter collapse,
at the idea of the secret being discovered, thatI did not pay very much attention to him.
“ Well,” said my host, “though the burglar
has escaped from the box he may be in the house
now. Suppose we search.”
“ Not necessary,” I said ; “ it is quite evident
that he left the house, as he entered it, by the
window. I locked the door when I left him here,
and the door was locked when we returned, he
must have got out of the house by the window.”
“ Quite right, Mr. Devant,” said a voice
behind us. “ He did get out of the house by thewindow.”
We looked round quickly ; there was the
burglar, standing, unabashed, in front of the
police-sergeant!
“ Arrest him instantly,” I cried.
The burglar replied: “With pleasure.”At that moment the burglar threw off his
disguise and presented himself before me.
He was my assistant!
The rest of the story is soon told. My
assistant had arranged to play a little practical joke on me. He thought that he had
“ arranged ” the box in such a way that
I would not be able to find the secret. Then
he had intended to go to my host, and invite
him to come up and see me imprisoned in the
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148 Woes of a Wizard
in that way I am never quite certain what
is going to happen next.
It does not do to be too playful with some
people. Once or twice, when I have asked a
man to lend me a watch, I have added jokingly—
if I have seen that it is an exceptionally good
one—Perhaps you would not mind throwingit on to the stage ” ; and they have taken me at
my word and thrown the watches. They have
expected me afterwards, in some miraculous way,
to put that watch together for them, and they
have got quite angry when they have dis
covered that they have smashed up their ownwatch.
On the other hand, some people are too pain
fully anxious about the fate of their watches when
they are in my hands. I have often been remon
strated with by an angry old man who has thought
that his watch has been really lost. I have knownan old man to get up and say that it is monstrous
and scandalous, that anyone like myself should
be allowed to comes to their town for one week,
and deliberately lose people’s watches in that
careless fashion ; and sometimes, when a man has
said this, I have heard it suggested afterwards,
by evil-minded people, that the man has been a
confederate of mine, and has simply made that
fuss in order to draw public attention to the
entertainment.
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150 Woes of a Wizard
think the best audience is one composed of peoplewho really take an interest in conjuring, who have
met at a family dinner party, and who want me
to come and amuse them for one hour. That
time is not long enough for them to get weary
of conjuring tricks, and I get my audience's critical
appreciation.Only a man who really understands the
principles of conjuring can properly appreciate
an experiment in sleight-of-hand. I do not
believe, with some men, that a great deal of harm
is done by giving away the so-called secrets of
tricks, because, although the people may know
how it is done, that knowledge will simply help
them to appreciate how difficult it is to do it.
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My Note Book 153
“ How stupid of me,” said the lady, as
she put the third kettle-holder in a piece of
paper.
Looking up from this simple task she missed
the cushion cover. I was busily engaged in
catching more money in the china bowl.
“ I am sorry to keep you waiting,” I said,“ but I haven’t caught enough yet. Shall I
collect a little money from those people who are
looking at me, and thinking they are going to
have a conjuring performance given to them
for nothing? ” So I collected about ten shillings
for the good of the charity. At the end Iaddressed the people who had gathered round
the stall.
“ I have here,” I said, “ a — er — beautiful
kettle-holder—I think you said?”
“Yes,” said the lady; “ hfteen-shillings-and-sixpence.”
“ Now,’’ 1 said, “ I am going to raffle it for
the good of the cause."
I obtained a sovereign for the kettle-holder,
and the lady was very pleased. When she
went to her large cash box she found threekettle-holders and a cushion cover neatly folded
up. A few moments afterwards, when I found
that the lady who had won the imaginary kettle-
holder in tile raffle was looking for me, I left.
I had paid fifteen-shillmgs-and-sixpence to the
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154 Woes of a Wizard
charity for this little amusement, and it was
only fair that the people who went in for the
raffle, and saw my tricks, should pay something
for their fun.
On the following day I received a letter
from the lady who had been in charge of
the kettle-holder stall. She asked me to helpher at another bazaar! Some people are never
satisfied.
Writing of my catching-money-in-the-air trick,
reminds me of the many occasions on which
I have amused myself with this trick. At one
time, when on tour, I used to conclude thistrick by going among the audience and dis
covering half-crowns in the beards of the men
and the hats of the ladies.
“It is very foolish of you to carry money
about in this way," I would say ; “ you would
do better to keep it in your pocket," and to
their surprise I would leave the half-crowns
with them. Perhaps I would distribute a dozen
half-crowns—real ones—during the course of
the trick.
I remember once watching a dear old ladyas she examined her half-crown. She appeared
to be completely upset at the occurrence. First
she took out her purse, turned the contents
into her lap, and counted the coins. Then
she did sums in an account book. Then she
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My Note Book 155
took off her veil and looked at it carefully,
as though she were searching for some secret
pocket that had hitherto escaped her notice.
Finally, she shook her head very slowly to and
fro, evidently with the intention of dislodging
any other stray half-crowns that might be con
cealed there. At last she put the half-crownI had found in her bonnet, on her lap, and
looked solemnly at it. Apparently she had
made up her mind that there was something
uncanny about that half-crown. When she was
leaving the hall she picked it up between her
thumb and first finger, and held it away fromher. She stopped before the hall-keeper, and
said :
“ I shall not take this home, young man.”
With that she dropped my good half-crown
into the hall-keeper’s pocket. She appeared
to be relieved at having got rid of the thing
so easily. When she had gone a few steps down
stairs she looked back to see if the hall-keeper
was embarrassed at being in possession of a
magic half-crown. The hall-keeper had refrained
from expressing his sorrow at the occurrence,and so the lady was quite satisfied. I noticed
that on the following evening the hall-keeper
wore a coat with two large breast pockets on
the outside.
Frequently after performing this expensive
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156 Woes of a Wizard
trick I have gone outside the hall and watched
the doings of the people who have received
half-crowns. I have generally heard something
like this :
“ It can't be a good ’un,”
“ Looks like a good ’un.”
“ Well, let’s change it, anyhow.”Such is human nature.
Then the little party would adjourn—some
times to a sweet-shop, sometimes — I regret to
say — to a public-house. I knew not what went
on in those places ; but I noticed that when
the people who had had the half-crown cameout again, they generally ran off quickly.
Once on a Saturday evening, after I had
performed this trick, I heard a gentleman ask
his demure and simple-looking young wife if
the half-crown she had received from me wasreally a good one.
“ Don’t know, dear,” she said sweetly. “ But
you can put it in the collection to-morrow, and— er
— George — and — er — half a crown will do for
both of us, won’t it ? ”
Some of the people who received half-crownsevidently told their friends that, when they saw
me coming round, they were to do all they
could to attract my attention, I could always
tell which members of the audience had been
so prepared for the trick. One of them once
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My Note Book 157
called me to him and said that he thought —
he was not quite sure— but he thought he
had half a crown in his beard.
“ Indeed ! ” said I ; “ and can't you find it ? ”
“ That I can’t.”
“ Let me try,” I said.
I saw the happy grin of expectancy comeover the faces of the man and his friends.
“ Curious," I said, “ but I can’t find it either.
You must have dropped it, or perhaps the barber
took it out when he cut your hair.”
After all, however, one ought not to be
either surprised or amused at meeting such
people. Most of us are keen on getting some-
thing for nothing. We are born with this
desire strongly implanted in our natures. I
discovered that fact by doing conjuring tricks
before children.The favourite tricks with children are those
in which the little dears have something given
to them — flags, or sweets, or dolls, tor preference.
Then they think that the conjurer is a very
nice man indeed, and so clever, too! Curiously
enough, I have found that audiences at lunaticasylums have this same liking for tricks in
which some kind of distribution is made. It
does not matter how simple the gifts are, or
how apparently useless to the recipients they
may be ; but, of course, I have always tried to
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158 Woes of a Wizard
distribute things which I have known would be
acceptable.
On one occasion, however, I failed hopelessly.
I had heard, on getting to a certain asylum, that
many of the patients were very fond of gardening,
and, therefore, they would be delighted if I gave
them a few flower-seeds. I at once went downto the local seedsman and bought a large bag of
sweet-pea seed. This bag I introduced into a
silk hat at the end of the performance. Under
cover of a handkerchief I broke the paper, leaving
the seed loose in the hat.
‘‘There,” I said, “ the good fairies have antici pated your requirements, and have sent you some
seeds for the garden.”
Then I pulled the handkerchief quickly away,
handed the hat down at once to an attendant
who had been in the secret, and he passed the
hat round so that all the patients might see thecontents.
I had retired from the stage and was eagerly
awaiting the applause that I felt sure would
follow the conclusion of this trick. To my
intense surprise it was received in absolute
silence. Thinking that possibly the patientsmight be so overcome with joy that they had
forgotten to applaud, I began to prepare for the
next trick, when in rushed the attendant who hadassisted me.
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160 Woes of a Wizard
again. I promised her that I would not produce
any eggs that evening, and she thanked me and
said she had a little surprise for me. I soon
discovered what it was. As I came on to the
platform she struck up “ See the Conquering Hero
Comes,” and she insisted on playing it right
through, while I stood in the centre of the platformand waited to begin.
Once on going to a schoolroom to give a
performance I found there was no piano. I had
brought a pianist with me, as usual — for a little
music is of great assistance during a conjuring
performance — and I therefore asked if a pianocould not be provided. But no piano could be
obtained. At last a dear old gentleman came
to me and said that if it was necessary that
I should have a little music, he would be
very pleased to bring his organette and play
on that. I thanked him, and the performance
began.
After my first trick the organette groaned out
the “ March of the Men of Harlech.” This was
bad enough, but at the next short interval the
instrument played the “ Old Hundredth.” Afterthe third trick it returned to the “ March of the
Men of Harlech,” and after the fourth the audience
were treated once more to the “Old Hundredth.”
And so we went on during the evening. It
appeared that the old gentleman had bought the
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My Note Book 161
organette by weekly instalments, and those were
the only tunes he possessed. Since then I have
always stipulated that there shall be a piano
in the room in which my performance is to be
given.
I I
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C H A P T E R X I V
SELLS
IDO not think that I have experienced the
worst sell in the world; but I have beenunpleasantly near to it. That distinction belongs,
in my humble opinion (people always say “inmy humble opinion ” when they are feeling rather
pleased with themselves and not in the least bithumble)—as I said, the distinction of having hadthe worst sell in the world, belongs to a youngfriend of mine who is an author. When he first began to send out articles and stories to the papers, he performed what, I believe, somewriters call “the boomerang feat”; that is tosay, he sent out his stories and articles in sucha manner, that they invariably returned to him.
But one day, to his great surprise, and tothe obvious displeasure of his friends, a paperaccepted one of his stories. That unfortunateman—he is not quite so unlucky now—jumpedwith delight. He bought many copies of the
paper containing his contribution, and sent them162
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Sells 163
to all his friends. Only one man came to con
gratulate him on his success, and he threw out a broad hint to the effect that, as the budding
author was about to make a good living by his
pen, no doubt he would not mind advancing a
small loan, which would be promptly repaid on
the following Monday. My young friend was so pleased at his first success, that he would cheer
fully have lent his next year’s income to any man
who had expressed a wish to have it. Therefore
he advanced the small loan. In the evening, he
recollected that he had expended so much money
on stamps, during the previous two years, thathis literary business still showed a loss, in spite
of that first cheque. In this commercial mood
he sent an article to the same kind editor, and
awaited results. He felt sure that the man who
had accepted his story would be only too pleased
to secure an article by him.A fortnight went by ; and then one day, while
some half-dozen friends of the young author were
in his study, a letter came for him. He turned
it over, and saw that it was from the paper that
had published his story.
“ Another cheque !" he exclaimed excitedly ;
and his friends, realising quickly that they would
probably be asked out to a good dinner, con
gratulated the author. But in that merry group
of men was one pessimist.
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164 Woes of a Wizard
“ You don't think,” suggested the pessimist,
“ that it can possibly be something returned, do
you ? You see, you haven’t opened the envelope.
yet."
''You needn’t worry about that,” said the
young author. “ The paper has only one thing
of mine, and that’s a long article. They couldn’tget it into an envelope that size ; besides, you can
see that there’s nothing in the envelope except
a note, and a little slip of paper! Now then, you
men, I’ll make a small bet with each of you that
the cheque is for something over a fiver.”
No one would take the bet. The youngauthor said that he would not keep them in
suspense ; he would open the envelope.
“ Of course,” he said, as he stuck his thumb
under the flap, and tore the envelope open, “ you
will all dine with me to-night, and then we’ll all
go to a music-hall and have a good time. To
morrow I’ll begin to work on a —what on earth
is this ? ”
He pulled out the contents of the envelope.
Now comes the sell. You, dear reader,
have had the sell. You, in the innocence ofyour young heart, have been thinking that the
envelope did not contain a cheque. That is
precisely where you have been sold. The young
author had a very fat cheque.
I thought I could not begin a chapter on sells
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Sells 165
better than by perpetrating a sell. I entreat
you not to get cross ; it shall not happen again.
All the other sells in this chapter are genuine.
After reading this part of the book you will
understand why I look so haggard and worn.
If you do not believe that I look like that,
turn to the cover of this book and gaze at my photograph. You will then agree with me when
I say that the life of a conjurer does not consist
entirely in performing before crowded houses.
Sometimes a sell turns out to be a piece of
good fortune to you. I remember that on one
occasion—it was soon after I had received myfirst fee as a conjurer — I was asked to give a
performance at a charity bazaar. It was not
until after I had finished my work, that I dis-
covered that another conjurer had been expected,
and that his name was on all the programmes !This was a great sell for me, because, even at
that early age, I realised the value of publicity.
I went to the vicar and suggested that the
programme ought to have had my name on it.
The vicar thought for a moment, and then he
suddenly seemed to be particularly pleased aboutsomething. He went to the little room at the
side, in which I was to perform, and announced
to the people who were waiting to pay their
money, that there had been a mistake. Mr. A----------
had not arrived ; but Mr. David Devant had
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166 Woes of a Wizard
been engaged at great expense (it was the firstI had heard of it, but I did not complain), andtherefore the price of admission would have to be raised from threepence to sixpence. Thatvicar was a good business man. Not only didhe give me this testimonial to my superiority to
Mr. A------
the conjurer, but he also rewarded mewith a free advertisement in his church magazine.Thus, what seemed like a sell turned out to
be anything but a sell.In most cases, however, my sells have been
quite genuine. Once, when I was a very young
conjurer, I wanted to do a trick with an egg.I rather prided myself on that trick, and inorder to make it appear as wonderful as possible,I had a small basin full of eggs on a side-table.I explained to my audience that it would be
perfectly easy for anyone to perform the trickthat I was about to present to them, if theyused an egg that had been specially prepared beforehand. To prove that I had not resortedto any such subterfuge, I had a dish of eggs,and I was willing to take any one of the eggs
chosen by the audience and break it, to showthat it was simply an ordinary egg. I wouldthen take another egg chosen by the audience and
perform my trick with it. I hoped that in thisway I should convince everyone that my trickswere done independently of any mechanical aid.
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Sells 167
I took the dish of eggs down to the audience,and two eggs were chosen. One was brown,the other was white. I was commanded to breakthe brown one; but when I returned to thestage, I made a pretence of beginning to breakthe white one. I was stopped- — as I had ex
pected I should be— with a shout of: “No,no; break the brown one !” I made a pretenceof taxing the audience with having changed theirmind, and the longer I hesitated about breakingthe brown egg, the more they insisted that theywished to see the interior of that particular egg.
“Very well,” I said at last—and by this timethe audience had quite convinced themselves thatthe brown egg was a trick egg — “ I will breakthe brown egg ; but I may tell you that youhave added considerably to the difficulty of the
trick.” With that I tapped the brown egg ona plate. The audience at the back of the hallstood up ; those in the front chuckled to themselves at the idea of having puzzled the conjurer.
“Go on!” shouted a small boy at the backof the hall, after I had tapped the egg twice
on the plate, and nothing had happened. “ Goon! Break it! It ain’t an egg at all. Yousee, it’s going up bis sleeve directly.”
(This is the popular explanation of everytrick that is performed. Once, after I had beendoing some tricks with my sleeves rolled up,
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168 Woes of a Wizard
I heard a lady say : “Yes, that’s all very well; but anyone could see that those were not hisreal arms. Those were merely cases over hisarms, and in those cases were little trap-doors.”)
Being exhorted by the ruder portion of theaudience to do the trick if I could, I tapped
the brown egg on the plate for the third time.I knew that I had cracked the shell; but theinward parts of the egg remained intact. Isuggested to the audience that the egg was bad,and that therefore it would be better left whole.The reply was that the egg was not an egg at
all.“ Then,” I said, “ perhaps you would not
mind breaking it. I have no wish to release a bad egg in the room.”
Then they jeered at me, and hands were
stretched out for the brown egg,“ See he doesn't change it,” cried one man.“ I’ll watch him,” shouted another. The brown
egg fell into the hands of a middle-aged spinster,who banged it on the handle of her umbrella, andthen declared it to be perfectly good—but
hard-boiled !I assured the audience that there had been
a mistake, and that I had not known of the stateof the egg. It was no use ; I had lost the confidence of my audience. I went to the dish foranother egg, hut that too was hard-boiled ; and
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Sells 169
we subsequently discovered that all the eggs
had been treated in that way. It appears that
a certain lady, who was very much interested
in my appearance as a conjurer, thought she
would assist me in some little way. She had
boiled the eggs hard because, she had argued
to herself, that if by any chance I dropped araw egg in full view of the audience, I should
be laughed at! Not only was that lady the
innocent cause of the afternoon’s performance
failing hopelessly, but she was also the means
of my losing what little reputation I had gained
for myself in our town. It was in vain that I
told the audience that I had not known that
the eggs were hard-boiled, and that I could
have done the trick with eggs in any state —
in fact, with no eggs at all! They would not
believe me ; and to this day some of the people
who were present, have an idea that if you
want to learn how to take a bunch of ribbons
and a flag out of an egg, you have to begin
by boiling the egg hard. They do not knowhow you go on after that ; but they know that
that is the first part of the secret.I mentioned that I held the two eggs up
before the audience, and invited them to tell
me which one they wished me to break. Shall
I let out a little secret, and tell you that when
a conjurer requests his audience to choose
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170 Woes of a Wizard
between one of two articles, he never really
allows them to make any such choice ? You
will say: “Oh! but we have seen conjurers who
haven’t attempted to influence us in any way,
when they have asked us to choose something.”
Well, this chapter is about sells, and so I
may tell you that you have been sold. This iswhat the conjurer does. We will suppose that
he wants to use one particular card out of— say
six cards, but in order to make the trick
appear extremely difficult, he wishes to invite the
audience to say which particular card he shall
use in the trick. The conjurer may perhapshold the cards up fanwise before the audience,
and ask them to choose three. If the card he
wishes to use is among those three cards, he
will throw the other three cards away, and will
then ask the audience to choose two cards. Ifthe card he wants in the trick is one of those
two cards, he throws the third card away, and
once more asks the audience to choose one of
the two cards. If they decide upon the card
he wants himself, he puts the other card down ;
but if their taste does not coincide with his,then he discards the card they choose, and
performs the trick with the one card—his own
card —which he still holds in his hand.
You will see that, in any case, the audience is
sold, and that the conjurer performs the trick
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Sells 171
with his own particular card. Perhaps you will
remember this the next time that a conjurer
asks you to “choose a card.” It may interest
you to know that I never make use of the
“ conjurer’s choice ” when I am doing a card trick.
I have a much simpler method of arriving at
the desired result.A friend of mine has just come in. He has
been kind enough to say that I might as well
make the chapter on “ Sells” very short ; because
he thinks that any book written by me will
be, in itself, quite enough of a sell for most
people. I do hope you will not agree with him.
One of the worst sells 1 ever had was in con-
nection with one of my first engagements. I
received a letter from a man asking me to give
a performance at a certain hall in Notting Hill.
He said he would be glad if I would call on himthat night and make the necessary arrangements.
I went to the address on the letter, but could not
find the place anywhere. Then I asked a police-
man to direct me to the hall, and the policeman
told me that there was no hall of that name in
Notting Hill, or anywhere near Notting Hill.I had spent three weary hours in tramping
about London, before I discovered that the letter
offering me an engagement was a hoax. I sub-
sequently discovered that the letter had been sent
by another conjurer, who was giving a new and
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172 Woes of a Wizard
very wonderful performance elsewhere, on the
same evening. He had evidently thought that
I should want to see his big trick, and that the
best thing he could do was to prevent me from
seeing it — lest I should discover the secret and
do the same thing myself. I suppose that in one
respect I may regard that hoax as a compliment ; but at the time, being very poor and very tired
and very hungry, I made a note of it, and added
it to my collection of woes.
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C H A P T E R X V
SOME COMPENSATIONS
I N between some of the woes described in previous chapters have been intervals of
joy ; occasions when I have felt somewhat com
pensated for the troubles I had brought uponmyself by my generous, disinterested efforts toentertain other people, and earn my living atone and the same time. For instance, therehave been times when I have been praised forwhat I have done (no — this is not a work ofthe imagination), and sometimes the praise has been of the best possible kind—not the usualconventional compliment.
I remember once I was engaged to appear inan old-fashioned country house. My perform
ance had to be given in the large hall, whichhad a small gallery running round three sidesof it. I had a fairly appreciative audience, butI thought that some of the children were not sointerested as children usually are in a conjuringentertainment. Later on in the evening I
1 73
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Some Compensations 175
Some people have an idea that a conjurer
is a kind of machine-man, who can be sent toa house — especially in the Christmas holidays —
and ordered to turn his machinery on at any
given moment. I like to lie back sometimes
and think that I have occasionally been able to
disabuse some people of that idea,I was once engaged to go to a bouse which
I was informed was close to a station. At that
time I was appearing twice a day at Messrs.
Maskelyne and Cooke’s entertainment at the
Egyptian Hall, and so I told the people, who
wished me to perform at their house, thatI could not come unless I could be sure of
getting back to the Egyptian Hall at eight
o’clock in the evening. They informed me
that that could easily be managed as their house
was not a five minutes’ drive from the station.
When I arrived at the station, I found thatthe house to which I was engaged to go could
not be reached in less than three quarters of
an hour. The consequence was that when
I arrived at the house I had time for only one
trick. The people were not at all pleased whenI told them that I should have to go back to
London then ; they seemed to have had an
idea that, having got me there, they would
be able to keep me for the remainder of theevening. A few days afterwards I received
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176 Woes of a Wizard
a letter from the man who had engaged me
to say that, as I had not given them an hour’s
performance, he would not pay my fee. I replied
that I would refer the matter to my solicitor,
and in the course of the next week I received
my cheque.
On another occasion I was engaged to appearat a private party at eight o’clock in the evening.
When I arrived at the house, I was asked to
wait in the servants’ hall. I sent up word to say
that I was there, and that I was ready to give
the entertainment. The message came back
to the effect that the people, before whom Iwas to perform, could not see me then as they
were just finishing dinner, and would not be ready
for me for another hour or so. I sent back a
message to say that I had been engaged from
eight to nine o’clock, and that I could not wait
after that time. The reply came back that Iwas to wait until I was sent for.
I did not reply at once to this, but I began
to give my entertainment in the servants’ hall,
and a more appreciative audience I never had.
My tricks were very successful, and I was pressedto give some encores. At nine o’clock I received
a message from “upstairs” to say that the
company were all in the drawing-room and
waiting for me to come and do some conjuring
tricks. I sent back a reply—the butler was
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Some Compensations 177
very loth to take it, but there was no way out
of the difficulty—to say that I had alreadygiven my performance according to the arrange
ment, and that I was just leaving the house.
Here again I had some little difficulty in getting
my fee, and had to threaten legal proceedings
before I received it.
I should like to add that the really good
people — the people who are in society and not
in what a clever writer has called “ semi-society" —
have always been most kind and considerate to
me, and it has been a real pleasure to me to
perform before them and their children. It isonly the rich nobodies who try to act unfairly ;
and I am glad to think that in such cases I
have been able to obtain the assistance of the
law, and have thus made them keep to their
word.
If I talk much more like this you will thinkthat I am getting too serious. Let me tell you
of a few occasions when conjuring has helped
me to have a little amusement for myself.
Everyone will remember Mr. Maskelyne’s
box-trick case. During the hearing of the action,
I was called as a witness to show that a trick
can be performed in several different ways, and
yet always with the same effect to the audience.
To illustrate my evidence I began to conjure
while I was in the witness-box. I vanished a
I 2
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178 Woes of a Wizard
half-crown in three or four different ways, and
finally offered to pass it invisibly into the judge’swig. I have since been informed that I was
getting very dangerously near to contempt of
court in suggesting such a thing ; but at the
time I seemed to be in no danger. As a matter
of fact, and at the risk of being considered
conceited, I may say that his lordship appeared
to be very interested and amused at my per
formance.
Many years ago I was performing in a small
town in which I was a complete stranger. The
inhabitants of that town were very sleepy;in fact, they were so drowsy that they did not
really appreciate the opportunity they had for
seeing me. The consequence of this slackness
on the part of the townspeople, was that business
was very bad. I sought an opportunity for a
little advertisement, and while walking aboutand thinking of a good plan to call attention
to my entertainment to be given that evening,
I saw something which I had never seen before.
This strange sight was observed by me in
a fishmonger’s shop, and I was so struck by it
that I stood in silent amazement before the shop,
A few passers-by stopped to see what was holding
my attention, and in the course of a few minutes
quite a respectable crowd was standing in front
of that shop. Presently it occurred to one of them
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Some Compensations 179
to ask another what they were all looking at.
The question was put to me.“ Don’t you see that rabbit hanging up there? ”
I replied. “ It does seem a shame to hang it up
before it’s quite dead, doesn’t it ? ”
“ Which one ? ”
“ The last but one on that row. Don't you see
its legs moving ? "
At first the people who could not sec the
rabbit’s legs jeered at the suggestion that the
rabbit was not dead; but when the people in
the front row of the crowd stood on one side
they all agreed that the poor rabbit was half alive,and that the man who had hung it up there
ought to be hung in the same position himself.
By this time the fishmonger was getting a little
curious to find out what everyone was looking at
in his shop.
A dear old lady, who had worked her way tothe front of the crowd, came forward, and, em-
phasising her words by brandishing her umbrella
in the fishmonger’s face, she told him that it
was a scandalous shame that he should treat
animals in that way. She said that it was quite
bad enough to boil lobsters alive, and she thought
that ought to be stopped; but to hang up a
rabbit while it was only half dead was a littletoo much, and she would report the matter to the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
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180 Woes of a Wizard
The fishmonger protested that the rabbit was
quite dead ; he said that he knew it could not be alive, because he had shot that particular rabbit
himself.“ Then," said the old lady triumphantly, “you
didn’t kill it properly.”
It was then my turn to put in a word, and Iassured the fishmonger that the lady was quite
right, and that the rabbit was certainly not quite
dead. I added that no doubt there had been a
mistake for which he was not entirely to blame.
The fishmonger who, by this time, seemed to be
getting a little dazed at the sight of the angrycrowd outside his shop, turned to me and said :
“ Which rabbit are they all talking about? I'll
soon show you if it’s dead or not.”
“Can't you see?” I said, going into the shop
and reaching the rabbit down ; “ why, this one
of course. It’s quite alive now —alive and
kicking!”
“Well, I'm blowed! ” said the fishmonger.
“ Here — let me put it out of its misery."
“ It’s a pity to do that,” I said. “ I’m going
to try and save its life, and keep it here as a pet for my little boy.”
“ Well, you’ll pay for it ? ” said the fish-
monger.
“ Certainly,” I replied. “ How much ?”
“ Two and sixpence.”
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Some Compensations 181
“ No,” I said ;“ that’s too much. I’ll tell
you what I'll do. I’ll give you a dead rabbit andsixpence for it."
By this time a large crowd of people were
tumbling over each other in their efforts to see
what was going on inside the shop. The old
lady, who had insisted that the fishmonger ought
to be ashamed of himself for being so cruel to
a rabbit, was urging me to put it out of its
misery.
“ Perhaps I’d better kill it, after all,” I said,
turning to the fishmonger.
Two boys in the crowd became deliriousin their joy at the prospect of seeing this
butchery.
“ Don’t let me see you,” said the old lady.
“ The poor thing shall not suffer,” I said.
“ Look ! ”
With that I struck at the rabbit, and thenheld up my arms wide apart. In one hand I
held a live rabbit ; in the other the dead one.
“ Why, it’s alive after all,” said the people
who noticed only the live rabbit.
“ Go on! ” cried the crowd nearest to thedead rabbit. “ Anybody can see it’s dead right
enough.”
Then the crowd saw the two rabbits, and I
took that opportunity to tell them that they
had been the victims of a little harmless deception,
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Now Ready.
AN UP-TO-DATE CONJURING BOOK,
In paper cover, price 1s. net, or cloth gilt, 2s. net.
M A G I C M A D E E A S Y .
BY
DAVID DEVANT.
London : S. H. BOUSFIELD & CO., Ltd.
Norfolk House, Norfolk Street, W.C.
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