The Mysterious Production.
This is another feat of the genus “sell,” and to produce due effect should only be introduced after the performer has, by virtue of a little genuine magic, prepared the company to expect from him something a little out of the common. He begins by informing the spectators that he is about to show them a great mystery, a production of nature on which no human being has ever yet set eye, and which, when they have once seen, no human being will ever set eyes on again. When the general interest is sufficiently awakened, he takes a nut from the dish and, having gravely cracked it, exhibits the kernel, and says, “Here is an object which you will all admit no human being has ever seen, and which” (here he puts it into his mouth and gravely swallows it) “I am quite sure nobody will ever see again.”