Chapter VI: Part 6

The suggested explanation may be either pseudo-scientific, where possible based on some generally accepted truth (and it is surprising what a long way even a few grains of truth go in such cases); or it may be downright “spoof,” delivered however with due appearance of seriousness. The explanations will naturally fall a good deal short of the George Washington standard of truthfulness, but the most tender conscience need not in such a case have any scruples on the score of veracity. No sane person expects truth in a fairy tale, and a magical entertainment, from beginning to end, is but a fairy tale in action. To put the matter in an epigrammatic nutshell:

Truth is “a gem of purest ray serene,”
A virtue always to be cultivated,
But such depends,--you’ll gather what I mean,--
On how you happen to be situated.
At home, abroad, wherever I may be,
I tell the honest truth, and shame the d----.
But when you ask to be deceived. Good gracious!
You can’t expect me then to be veracious.
In that case only do I make exception,
And most deceive when vowing “no deception.”

This function of patter, the leading away the minds of the audience from the true explanation of the puzzle offered them, may be materially assisted by the introduction, among the “properties” used, of some object professedly essential to the trick, but as a matter of fact having no real concern with the effect produced. The audience take for granted that it must have something to do with the effect, or it would not be used, and are thereby led away the more effectually from the actual explanation. Numerous illustrations of the use of this device will be found in the foregoing pages.

If, in the case of a given trick, the performer is absolutely at a loss to produce a satisfactory fable to introduce it, he may evade the difficulty by stating that he is about to produce an effect for which he cannot himself account, and inviting the assistance of his audience in doing so.

The second function of patter is the calling of the attention of the audience to matters which you desire them to take note of, and to give opportunity to do so. There is small credit to be gained by changing the ace of clubs into the ace of hearts, or making a given article pass invisibly from one spot to another, unless the spectators have been first made to realise the original state of things, and they must be allowed _sufficient time_ to do so. I have more than once seen an otherwise brilliant show spoilt by being rushed through at railroad speed. The mind of the spectator had not been allowed time to receive clear impressions. The company in such a case disperses with a consciousness of having had a rapid succession of surprises, but with only a cloudy recollection as to what they were.

In devising, as is sometimes desirable, new patter for an old trick, an endeavour should be made to look at the effect from an entirely fresh point of view, so as to make the trick practically a new one. A remarkable instance of such a transformation is furnished by an incident in the life of Robert-Houdin. At one period of his career he was entrusted by the French Government with a very important mission. He was sent to Algeria, specially charged to “astonish the natives,” and by his greater wonders to destroy their belief in the pretended miracles of the Aissoua.

Among other surprises, he decided to make use of his “Light and Heavy Chest,” a chest which, as the reader is doubtless aware, became at command, by means of an electro-magnet in the pedestal on which it rested, so “heavy” that the strongest man could not lift it from its base. This trick, produced at a time when the phenomena of electricity were but little understood, has produced an immense sensation at his Paris performances. But the Master instinctively felt that the trick in that shape would produce little or no effect on the more primitive mind of the Arab. He would simply have taken for granted some mechanical means of holding down the chest, beyond his own comprehension, no doubt, but by no means to be regarded as miraculous. Robert-Houdin decided to change the mode of presentation altogether, and to make the illusion no longer objective, but subjective. He announced that by means of his magic power he could take away the strength of the strongest man, and render him weak as a little child. The “chest” was in this case merely brought forward in a casual way, as a convenient object wherewith the assertion of the magician could be tested. The strongest man in the company was invited to come forward, and try whether he could lift that little box. Of course he could, and did; a child could have done the same. “You lifted it because I permitted you to do so,” said the magician. “But I take away your strength. Try to lift it now!”

Again the athlete tries his strength, but now he fails. With teeth set, and every muscle tense, he strains, and strains, but in vain, and he has to confess that the infidel wonder-worker has, for the time, taken away all his strength. Here was a wizard indeed!

In arranging your patter, be humorous if you can, but if, like the gentleman we have all heard of, you “joke with difficulty,” don’t force yourself to be funny. That it is possible for a man lacking humour still to be a great conjurer is proved by the case of Hartz, who was notably deficient in this particular, but by his excellence in other directions won a place in the very first rank of his profession. But if you cannot be humorous, at any rate be cheerful. Geniality of manner is one of the most valuable assets of the conjurer. Above all, don’t be nervous. You may say “I can’t help it,” but to a great extent you can. It is largely a matter of _will_. Start with the idea that all will go well, and it will probably do so. On the other hand, a low-spirited conjurer always makes a low-spirited audience.

In any case, be sparing of puns, which have been deservedly described as the lowest form of wit. A single pun, if good enough (or bad enough) may win a laugh, and score to your credit, but to pepper an audience with verbal shrapnel in the shape of puns is an outrage on good taste.

Passing to the third function of patter, the misdirection of attention in the course of a trick, we will assume that you have made a start in the right direction at the outset, by suggesting some fanciful explanation of the effect you intend to produce, so that your audience, starting from wrong premises, do not know the points at which their too close observation would be inconvenient. The best way of diverting their attention at one of these critical points is obviously to attract it to some other direction. A mere sentence, particularly if accompanied by appropriate action, will suffice. Supposing, to take an elementary instance, that the performer desires to drop unseen into the profonde from his left hand some small article for which he has just deftly substituted a duplicate, now exhibited in the right hand, he has only to say, “Now I want you particularly to keep an eye on this”--whatever the article in the right hand may happen to be. All eyes are for the moment, instinctively drawn to the object in question, and in that moment the deed is done. The artifice is ridiculously simple, but it is effective, and it is on being fully prepared with the right thing to say and do at the critical moment that the success of a magical entertainment largely depends. Careful rehearsal, preferably before an expert friend, will furnish the best hints as to the danger-spots in the working of a trick, and how best to devise patter to meet them.

A final word of advice--advice that has been often given, but cannot be too often repeated if you really aim to carry your audience with you. Never lose sight of the fact that you are, in the words of Robert-Houdin, “an actor playing the part of a magician,” and take your office seriously. In particular, never before an audience use the word “trick,” which at once gives away all your pretension to magical power. An actor never tells his audience that he is an actor or that he is playing a part. He does not call their attention to his make-up, however excellent, or tell them that his wig comes from Clarkson. On the contrary, he does his best to make his audience for the time forget that he is Hubert de Barnstormer, or whatever his stage name may be, and to keep up the illusion that he is actually the person whom he represents. The modern magician should do the same. If he has enough of the true artistic spirit to imagine, when he steps forward on the platform, that he _is_ a magician, and that his miracles are genuine, he will go a long way towards producing a like impression in the minds of his audience. Bearing this in mind, describe what you propose to do as an “effect,” a “marvel,” an “experiment,” or a “phenomenon”; never by any chance as a “trick.”

It may be objected that I have myself repeatedly used the obnoxious word in the course of the foregoing pages, but that is another matter. This book is written by a conjurer for conjurers: and as between ourselves we are forced to admit, painful though it be to do so, that our greatest miracles are only tricks. But we need not tell the public so. Logically-minded, persons know it well enough, if they are allowed to think about the matter. Our business is to make them, for the time, forget it. A wise old Roman said: _Populus vult decipi: decipiatur_. Your audience wish to be deceived; in fact they have come together for that purpose. By all means let them be deceived to the top of their bent; and the first step towards effectually deceiving them, is to persuade them, if possible, that there is “no deception.”

The patter for a given trick, once composed, and tested by a few performances in public, may thenceforth, so far as the professional is concerned, be left to take care of itself. It should automatically improve with each of its earlier repetitions as good wine improves in bottle. Faults will correct themselves, and being made perfect by practice, the performer will thenceforth be able to “speak his piece” without effort, and devote his whole energies to the actual working of the trick.

To the amateur, only performing on special occasions, with perhaps considerable intervals between them, I commend a plan from which I myself derived great benefit, viz.: Write out from memory the patter for each trick on the programme a day or two before a coming performance. After you have given your show, go through your manuscript again carefully, noting and correcting it in any point in which the patter failed to be exactly right. The interpolation of a single sentence, the transposition in point of sequence of two movements, or the alteration of some trifling detail, such as standing at a different angle to your table at a given moment, may make all the difference between partial failure and complete success.

THE USE OF THE WAND

Closely connected with the subject of patter is the use of the wand, which in my own opinion cannot be too sedulously cultivated. To the cases in which the wand itself forms the prominent item of the trick, I devoted a special chapter in “Later Magic.” To these therefore I need not further refer. More important, however, is the part played by the wand from the point of view of general utility.

In the first place, it is the only remnant of the traditional outfit of the magician. Time was, when the regulation costume of the wizard was a sugarloaf hat, and a robe embroidered with highly coloured mystic symbols. Such a robe is still worn as part of their make-up, by Chung Ling Soo and a few other Orientals, but the orthodox costume of the latter-day wizard is ordinary evening dress. The wand alone remains; the symbol and the professed instrument of his mystic powers, and from its traditional connection with magic, there is a special prestige attached to it.

For these reasons alone it would be desirable to retain the use of the wand, but apart from them, its practical uses are many and various. One of the first difficulties of the novice, as he comes forward to introduce himself to his audience, is to know what to do with his hands. He can hardly advance with hand on heart, within his vest, _à la_ Pecksniff. Held open, with arms hanging down by the sides, the hands look too stiff, and to advance with them in his pockets would hardly be good form. By coming forward wand in hand, he avoids these difficulties. The hand holding it automatically assumes an easy and natural position, and he ceases to think about the other. With the wand held in the right hand across the body, its free end resting on the palm of the opposite hand, he is in an ideal attitude for delivering his introductory patter. Later on, by holding the wand in the hand, he effectually disguises the fact that he has some object, a card, a coin, or a watch concealed therein. If he has occasion to call attention directly to any object, the wand forms the most natural pointer. If he finds it necessary, for some reason connected with the trick in hand, to make a turn or half-turn away from the spectators, the fact that he has left his wand upon the table affords him the needful opportunity.

Lastly, if the wand is habitually used as the professed instrument of a desired transposition or transformation, a certain portion of an average audience gradually becomes impressed with the idea that there really must be some occult connection between the touch of the wand and the effect produced. There is much virtue in what may be called a magical atmosphere, and after the wizard has proved his magical power by performing two or three apparent impossibilities, the mind of the spectator (though in his calmer moments, he knows, or should know, better), is led to adopt in a greater or less degree the solution “forced” upon him by the conjurer. Habitual use of the wand, with apparent seriousness, goes far to create the desired atmosphere.

A good effect may be produced by “electrifying” the wand now and then, by rubbing it with a handkerchief. The main uses of electricity are so widely known, and so little understood by the million, that they are quite ready to give it credit for still more marvellous possibilities.

My friend Mr. Holt Schooling, mentioned in connection with _The Secret of the Pyramids_, finds an additional use for the wand. He uses, not one only, but half a dozen, of different appearance, each credited with some special magical virtue. At the outset of his show these are arranged horizontally, one above another on pins projecting from a small sloping blackboard. For each fresh trick the wand professedly appropriate to it is brought into action, the one last used being at the same time replaced on the stand. The spectators do not suspect that behind each top corner of the board is a small servante, enabling the performer, under cover of the change of wands, to change a pack of cards, or to effect some other substitution necessary for the purpose of his next item.

_Verbum sap_, by all means cultivate the use of the wand, and for the sake of effect, let it be of an elegant and distinctive character. An office-ruler or a piece of cane would serve many of its mechanical purposes, but would lack the prestige attached to what is, professedly, the genuine article.

One of the most striking proofs of the extensive use and appreciation of the wand by modern magicians is furnished by the remarkable collection of such implements got together by Dr. Saram R. Ellison, of New York.

Dr. Ellison[20] is an eminent and popular physician, whose ruling passion is wanting to know things, particularly things that other people don’t know. Such being his temperament, it goes almost without saying that at an early period of his career he became a Freemason. Having been duly initiated into the mysteries of the ordinary lodge, and learnt all it had to teach him, he still yearned for “more light,” and accordingly worked his way up step by step through intervening degrees in masonry till he reached what is known as the thirty-third degree, an order even more exclusive than that of the Garter, and claiming to possess secrets as to which the ordinary “blue” mason, even though he be a Past Grand Everything, knows no more than the veriest outsider.

When in this direction there were no more mysteries left for him to conquer, Dr. Ellison naturally turned his attention to Magic: and in accordance with his habitual determination to know all that there is to be known with regard to his hobby for the time being he began to collect books upon the subject. At first there were but few to collect, but the literature of magic has grown, and grown, and side by side with its advance Dr. Ellison’s collection has grown larger and larger till it numbers some hundreds of volumes. Harry Kellar, the dean of American magicians, and himself an enthusiastic collector, yearned to possess it, and offered the doctor for it the handsome sum of two thousand dollars, equivalent in English money to about four hundred pounds. But Dr. Ellison was not to be tempted. In order that the collection should be preserved intact, he donated it, some years ago, to the New York Public Library, also providing a fund for its upkeep and further development.

But Dr. Ellison’s interest in, and services to Magic did not end here. He has made a collection of models, entirely the work of his own hands, of the appliances for over sixty stage illusions. Some are of full size, others quite miniature affairs, but one and all exact to scale. Further, the doctor has a special affection for souvenirs of famous magicians, past and present, especially in the shape of wands, as being the most characteristic possession of the wizard. Accordingly, some years ago, he began to collect wands, and he now possesses more than eighty such, each a wand which has been habitually yielded by some more or less famous magician. By the courtesy of Dr. Ellison I am enabled to furnish particulars of some of them; as given in a very interesting pamphlet by Epes W. Sargent, a well-known American writer.

The catalogue commences with a wand formerly belonging to Professor Anderson, the once famous “Wizard of the North.” Here are found also the wands used by the two Herrmanns (Carl and Alexander), Buatier de Kolta, Lafayette, Martin Chapender, Carl Willmann and others who tread the stage no more. As regards the living, there is here a memento of nearly every English-speaking conjurer of note: besides many others of cosmopolitan celebrity.

The wand here exhibited is not always the conventional ebony and ivory affair, some of the specimens being indeed of a highly original character. For instance, the wand contributed by a Hindu magician consists of the leg bone of a sacred monkey from the temple of Hanuman, the monkey god, at Benares. The wands of Madame Adelaide Herrmann and Chung Ling Soo take the shape of fans. Horace Goldin’s is a cut-down whip-handle, and those of Clement de Lion and Imro Fox are portions of one-while walking-sticks, promoted to a nobler use. Mr. J. N. Maskelyne’s “wand” is an ordinary file, which, from the inventor point of view, he regards as the greatest of wonder-working appliances.

My own contribution may claim to be of exceptional interest, not merely as being in itself a curio, but as a memento of a very remarkable man, so remarkable, indeed, that a brief notice of his career may be interesting. It was presented to me by Professor Palmer, a gentleman who was not, like myself, a bogus professor, but the real thing, and withal an exceptionally eminent man. Skill in sleight-of-hand was the least of his accomplishments. He had a marvellous gift of tongue, there being scarcely a European or Oriental language with which he was not thoroughly familiar. He was born at Cambridge in 1840, and from his earliest years showed indications of his peculiar gift for acquiring languages. As a school-boy he made friends among the gipsies, and learned to speak their queer language so perfectly as to deceive even those to whom it was their native tongue. In later life it was a favourite joke of his to saunter, in company with his equally accomplished friend, Leland, into some gipsy encampment where they were not known, and after paying their footing by having their fortunes told, to ask some of the nomads gathered round the fire, to talk a little Rommany for their benefit. Gipsies are chary of speaking Rommany except among their own people, and the inquisitive strangers were frequently told that there was no such language; whereupon, one of them would turn to the other, and in purest Rommany quietly express an opinion that their temporary hosts were not thorough-bred gipsies, but of some inferior stock. This produced Rommany in plenty, and the visitors were energetically taken to task for that, being themselves gipsies, they should ape the dress and manners of the Gorgio. A friendly explanation made all end happily.

Palmer made his first start in life as a clerk in the City of London, where in his spare time he made himself master of French and Italian. A little later he took up the study of Persian, Arabic and Hindustani, and speedily conquered them. In 1867, after taking his degree at the University of Cambridge, he was elected a Fellow by his College, an honour conferred on him in recognition of his mastery of the Oriental languages. During the years 1868-1870 he was employed on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, to make a survey of Mount Sinai, in the course of which he became upon friendly and indeed almost brotherly terms with many of the wild Arab tribes, among whom he was known as the Sheikh Abdullah. As in England he had been made free of the gipsy tent, so in Palestine he could drop in upon many a Bedouin encampment, and be sure of a hearty welcome. His skill in sleight-of-hand, which he had in the first instance taken up merely as a pastime, proved to be of immense service to him in his desert wanderings; adding not only to his popularity but frequently gaining for him the prestige of a genuine magician, and thereby increasing his influence.

In 1871 he was appointed to the professorship of Oriental languages at Cambridge, his official title being the Lord High Almoner’s Reader of Arabic. In 1882, in anticipation of the Arabi trouble in Egypt, he was entrusted by the then Government with the difficult and dangerous task of winning over the Sinaitic tribes, and preventing the threatened destruction of the Suez Canal.

His first trip, extending from Gaza to Suez, was carried out successfully, but on penetrating farther into the desert, he and his two companions, Captain Gill, R.E., and Lieutenant Charrington, R.N., fell into the hands of a tribe to whom Palmer was unknown, and were barbarously put to death. Happily, their bodies were recovered, and received from the nation the posthumous honour of burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The wand presented to me by Professor Palmer is a curiosity in many ways. It is made of acacia wood (the “shittim” wood of the Old Testament) brought by Palmer himself from Mount Lebanon. Around it, in spiral form, is inscribed an invocation from the Koran, in Arabic characters. The writing of the inscription is a genuine work of art, having been executed as a special favour to Palmer, by Hassoun, an eminent professional “scribe.”

I am reluctantly bound to admit that the Palmer wand, in my hands, did not exhibit any special magical virtues, and when I ceased myself to use it, it seemed to me that it could not find a worthier home than in Dr. Ellison’s fine collection.

* * * * *

Reverting for a moment to the subject of patter, I will conclude by quoting, for the amusement rather than the instruction of the reader, an oration which (with variations) now and then formed my introductory _boniment_, and might on occasion still serve, in default of better.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, and members of the Royal Family, if any happen to be present, I am about to exhibit for your amusement, a few experiments in Unnatural Philosophy, otherwise Magic.

“Magic in the olden times was a very different thing, as I daresay you know, from what it is at present. In those days every respectable wizard kept a familiar spirit: a sort of magical man of all work. He cleaned the boots and knives, and when his master gave a show, it was the familiar who worked all his miracles for him. The magician only did the talking, and pocketed the takings. But the familiar did much bigger things than that. If his master’s next-door neighbour made himself disagreeable, the familiar would hoist him up and drop him in the water-butt, or into the Red Sea, according to order. If the magician wanted a week at the seaside, he had no need to pay railway fare. The familiar would just pick him up, house and all, and land him gently in the middle of the mixed bathing. The only drawback was that, sooner or later, a time came when there was no performance, because the magician had been carried off by his familiar on a pitchfork.

“As the French say, _nous avons changé tout cela_. Familiars are as extinct as the dodo. Perhaps it’s as well, but it makes it very much harder to be a magician. In the first place you must know all about astrology, anthropology, Egyptology and all the other ologies. You must be well posted in mathematics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and numismatics. You must know all about clairvoyance, palmistry and thought reading, sympathy and antipathy, magnetism, mesmerism, wireless telegraphy, X rays and all the other kinds of rays. Of course you must be well up in Greek and Latin, and a little Hebrew, not to mention a few other things which I forget for the moment, but I won’t stop to think of them now. When you have studied these little matters fourteen hours a day for nine or ten years, you will be as ‘chock-full of science’ as old Sol Gills himself, and you will be able to do all sorts of wonderful things, some of which I hope to show you this evening.

“Before I begin, there is just one little matter I should like to mention. You hear people talk about the quickness of the hand deceiving the eye. I don’t know whether the quickness of the hand ever does deceive the eye, but I want you to understand that you must not expect anything of that sort from _me_. I am naturally slow. I was born twenty minutes after I was expected, and I have been getting slower and slower ever since.

“To-night, I intend to do everything even more slowly than usual: so that you will only have to watch me closely to see exactly how it is all done. Then, when you go home, if you do as I do, and say as I say, without making any mistakes, no doubt you will be able to produce the same results. If not, there must be ‘something wrong with the works.’”

[20] Since this was written Dr. Ellison has passed into the mysterious beyond.

A FEW WRINKLES[21]

Every conjurer who has in him, as all conjurers should have, the creative instinct of the artist, and aims therefore at putting something of himself into his work, must of necessity be to some small extent an amateur mechanic. The hints which follow are addressed to the reader in that capacity. I have no pretension to teach him how to do things in the way of construction, but merely to make the doing of them easier. Though relating to matters in themselves small, the “tips” which follow may safely be said to come within the scope of Captain Cuttle’s celebrated counsel, “when found make a note of.” It often happens that the amateur mechanic has to take considerable trouble and pains in procuring some special requirement, while there is already on sale, at small cost, just the thing he wants, if he only knew what to ask for, and where to get it. The paragraphs which follow will, in some at any rate of such cases, supply the needful information.

1. For woodwork on a small scale, an old cigar box will often be found suitable material. Where such a box is not available or not suitable for the particular work in hand, what is called “three-ply” may supply the need. This consists of three layers of thin wood glued together under pressure, with the grain of the intermediate layer running crossway to that of the other two, the tendency to warp being thereby greatly reduced. Drawing-boards are, for this reason, now usually made of wood so combined, and a drawing-board makes for many purposes a good enough _extempore_ work-bench. For a finer class of work, the amateur mechanic, if he is willing to take the trouble, may make his own three-ply. For this purpose he should procure a supply of what is called “knife-cut” veneer, _i.e._, thin sheets of walnut, mahogany, satin,--or other hard wood, and glue them together with the white glue to be presently described. Veneer merchants form a distinct trade, and are comparatively few in number, but the resident in London can obtain veneer and thin woods of all descriptions from Messrs. McEwan & Son, 282 Old Street, E. C. In country districts the shops which hold agencies for “Hobbies” materials also sell planed-up woods of various kinds, ranging like veneer from one-sixteenth to half an inch in thickness.

2. As a handy substitute for glue, most people are acquainted with the virtues of Seccotine, in its way a most useful preparation. But there are many purposes for which Seccotine is too aggressively viscous, while ordinary paste is not adhesive enough. In such cases I can strongly recommend _Pastoid_, a composition midway between glue and paste. For all purposes for which paste (in small quantity) is ordinarily used, Pastoid may be substituted with advantage. I myself came across it accidentally two or three years ago, “since when,” like the gentleman in the soap advertisement, “I have used no other.” The maker is Henry Roberts, Middlesborough, but it should be obtainable of any up-to-date stationer or fancy dealer. It is supplied in glass jars, at sixpence and a shilling.

3. Where an actual glue, of fine quality, is needed, procure sheet gelatine, to be had of any grocer. Cut into small pieces and melt in an ordinary gluepot using water enough to make the resulting solution about as thick as ordinary gum water. It should be used as near boiling point as possible, and the joined surfaces left to dry under the heaviest pressure available. A joint made with this glue is practically invisible.[22]

4. For dividing up thin stuff (wood or cardboard), into rectangular slabs, the handiest tool is the “cutting gauge.” This is practically identical with the better known “marking gauge,” save that the “marker” is replaced by a little spade-pointed cutter. This tool is only available for cutting wood up to say eight inches in width, but to the amateur attempting small work only, it will be found invaluable.

5. For staining wood or cardboard a deep dead black I have found nothing better than the “Record Jet Stain,” manufactured by the Record Polish Company, Eccles, Manchester. It is normally designed for staining leather only, the makers not having apparently realised its usefulness in other directions. It is to be had of any dealer in leather goods, in twopenny and sixpenny bottles. In many cases I have found it best to rub it in with a pad, rather than to apply it with a brush, but this will of course depend largely on the nature of the article to be treated.

6. An excellent polish for use after staining, or for other purposes, is made by dissolving _white_ wax in turpentine, to the consistency of cream. Applied sparingly, with plenty of friction to follow, this produces a clean hard gloss, free from the stickiness which is sometimes left after the use of other polishes.

7. For enamelling small articles use Maurice’s Porceleine (the makers of which are Walter Carson & Sons, Grove Works, Battersea, S. W.) procurable at “oil and colour” men in tins from three-halfpence upwards.

8. For any article to be made of flat card or mill-board, without folding or bending, preference should be given to “Bristol” board, sold by artists’ colour-men. This is somewhat more expensive but is stiffer and harder and has a better surface than the commoner articles.

9. For joining wood to wood without glue where there is no great thickness to be penetrated, “needle-points,” procurable of any ironmonger, will be found useful. These are stout eyeless needles, of very brittle steel, about two inches in length. To use them, bore with a fine bradawl a hole partially through the wood, then drive in the needle-point by gentle tapping with a hammer, and when it has penetrated the desired depth snap off all that remains above the surface.

10. Also useful for many purposes are what are called by drapers “blanket” pins. These are of brass, and a card of such pins in three sizes, ranging from two to three inches in length and varying proportionately in thickness, may be bought for a penny. Pins a trifle shorter and thinner than the above are known as “laundry” pins. Apart from their normal uses, pins of these kinds are very useful for bending into hooks, or to cut up into short lengths of stiff straight wire for pivots or otherwise.

11. For all effects dependent upon a thread pull use, in place of ordinary thread, _plaited_ silk fishing line. This is procurable of any sports’ outfitter or fishing tackle dealer, in twenty and forty yard lengths, and in half a dozen grades of thickness, the finest being not much thicker than a hair line. The breaking strain of this is much greater than that of ordinary thread, and it has the further advantage that being plaited instead of twisted it does not unroll or “kink” in use. Allcock, of Redditch, a name familiar to all anglers, is a noted maker of such line, but he has no monopoly of its manufacture. It is usually sold white, but may be easily dyed any desired colour.

For this last valuable “tip” I am again indebted to my often-quoted friend, Mr. Holt Schooling, who, as an enthusiastic angler, is an expert as to lines of all descriptions. The reader will find numerous instances of the practical use of such line in the earlier part of this book.

A good way of dyeing line is to thread a needle on to one end, and pass it by the aid of the needle through one corner, moistened with the appropriate dye, of a soft sponge, and then back again through the dry part of the sponge to clean off any excess of moisture. When dry, if necessary, repeat the process.

12. Square envelopes, for the purpose of forming “nests” or otherwise, are now and then needed by the conjurer, but envelopes precisely square (save the small variety known as “pence” envelopes) are not kept in “stock” by stationers in the ordinary way. When such are needed the readiest plan is to take an envelope of the long “bag” shape and shorten it to an exact square, closing the lower end as before. Envelopes of the above kind are procurable in many varieties of paper, and in widths ranging by various fractions of an inch from four inches upwards.

13. To make a line, thick or thin, run freely over a pulley-wheel or through an eyelet, use as a lubricant powdered talcum, otherwise known as French chalk. This is equally useful for minimising friction between wooden surfaces, or between wood and metal, say between a pulley-wheel and the pivot on which it turns. Where the slight extra cost is not an obstacle the use of ivory as the material of a pulley-wheel secures the perfection of easy running.

* * * * *

It is, I trust, hardly necessary to say that wherever I have mentioned an article to be had by purchase, my recommendation is based solely upon practical experience of its merits. I have no interest, direct or indirect, in any of the articles mentioned, and my knowledge of their manufacturers is derived solely from their respective labels.

[21] This book having been written primarily with a view to British readers, some of my recommendations will naturally be of no value to my American friends, but I have not thought it necessary to delete them. L. H.

[22] For the information contained in this paragraph, as also that relating to the use of Veneers I am indebted to Mr. Holt Schooling, who is an expert in such matters. My own essays in the direction of fancy cabinet-making have for the most part been limited to rough models to be reproduced in finished shape by more practised hands.

L’ENVOI

With these last lines I lay down my pen, as I have long since laid down the wand. I do so with regret, for writing about magic has always been to me a labour of love, but failing energy and failing eyesight warn me that my day is over, and that “the night cometh, wherein no man can work.”

When I first began to discourse of magic, I had the whole field, in a literary sense, to myself. That state of things has long since ceased to be. Fertile brains and ready writers have taken up my task, and magic has now a worthy literature, growing day by day. “So mote it be!”

Furthermore, if I may be allowed a word of advice, let me say that every lover of magic, be he professional or amateur, should join a magical society. No great work can be carried forward without organization, and the success of such bodies as The Magician’s Club and the Magic Circle here, and the Society of American Magicians over seas, has proved that magic is no exception to the rule.

I must not close without a word of hearty thanks to Harry Houdini, Oscar S. Teale and John W. Sargent, of the Society of American Magicians, for their generous offices in connection with the publication of my book. With this last legacy to the friends, at home and abroad, who have derived pleasure or profit from my writings, I bid them a cheery farewell.

LOUIS HOFFMANN.