A SENSATIONAL DIVE
Striking a match, Joe ignited two candles that stood on a little table at one side of his stage. On the other side his assistants were setting up the apparatus he intended to use in his more elaborate experiments.
"You observe that the trick has not yet begun," said Joe, with a laugh, as he blew out the match. "In other words, I am lighting these candles in the ordinary way—just as any one of you would do it, if he needed to. In a moment I will show you how to light the candles in case one is accidentally blown out and you have no match."
Allowing both candles to burn up well, with clear, bright flames, Joe suddenly blew out one.
"Now," he said, "I will show you how to carry fire in your hands from the lighted to the unlighted candle. Watch me closely!"
Joe cupped his hands around the lighted candle, seeming to take the flame up in his fingers. When he removed his hands, which he still held in cup, or globular, shape, the second candle had been extinguished. Both were now out.
"You will notice that I am carrying the flame in my hands from one candle to the other," said Joe, in a loud voice, as he walked across the stage.
For an instant he spread his hands, cup fashion, around the candle he had first blown out. Suddenly he withdrew his hands, holding them wide apart and in full view of the audience, and, lo! the unlighted candle was glowing brightly.
There was a moment of silence, and then the applause broke forth. Joe bowed and said:
"That is how to carry fire in your hands. But please don't any of you try it unless you get the directions from me."
"Tell us how to do it!" piped up a small boy.
"Come and see me after the show!" laughed Joe.
And, while on this subject, it might be well to explain how Joe did the trick. It is very simple, but it takes practice, and an amateur may easily be fatally burned in the attempt, simple as it is.
Joe lighted the candles in the usual way, with a match, as already explained. There was no trick about this, nor about blowing out one. But immediately after that the trick started. Joe placed a little piece of waxed paper between the first and second fingers of his left hand as soon as he had blown out the first candle. This paper was a slender strip, and could not be seen by the audience.
When he cupped his hands around the remaining lighted candle Joe ignited this waxed strip, taking care to work it away from his palms and fingers. It burned with a tiny flame and with scarcely any heat in the middle of the hollow cup formed by his hands.
As soon as he had ignited the paper Joe, by pressing the lower edges of his palms against the blazing wick of the candle, extinguished it. This had the same effect as though he had "pinched" out the flame with finger and thumb, as many country persons put out, or "snuff," candles to-day—for candles are still much used in some places.
Now we have Joe with a little blazing taper concealed in his cupped hands, advancing to the candle he first blew out. He placed his hands around this, lighted the wick from the taper, which he at once crushed between his fingers, and the trick was done.
The candle was lighted, the remains of the little taper were concealed between Joe's fingers, and it looked as though he had really carried fire in his hands. The quickness with which he pinched out the candle flame, and also smothered the taper after he had used it, prevented him from being burned in the slightest. But it is best for a boy unpracticed and without the dexterity of a professional prestidigitator not to undertake to play with fire.
Joe Strong believed in doing his tricks and acts artistically and elaborately. He had watched other performers "dress their act," and he had often improved on what even stage veterans had done. His apprenticeship had been a stern but good one.
And now he was going to introduce something novel in his fire-eating tricks, but he was also going to add to that. He had read considerable of late about the fire-eating tricks of the old "magicians" and had delved into many curious old books. Now he was going to give his audience some of this information.
"There is a trick in everything," said Joe, as he faced his audience in readiness for the fire-eating act. "If I told you that I actually swallowed blazing fire, any physician would know that I was not telling the truth. I do not really eat the fire. I only seem to do so. But if in doing so I can deceive you into thinking I do, and you are thrilled and amused, you get your money's worth, I earn mine, and we are all satisfied. So don't be alarmed by what you see.
"The resistance of the human body to heat is greater than many persons suppose," said Joe. "And there is a vast difference between wet heat and dry heat. Water, above one hundred and fifty degrees, would be unbearable. It would really burn you badly. Water, as you know, boils at two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit. But before this point is reached it is capable of ending life.
"Dry heat, however, is different. Men have frequently borne without permanent discomfort dry heat up to three hundred degrees. This heat is often reached in the drying rooms of oilcloth and oiled silk factories.
"Now the fire I handle is dry heat. I would no more think of pouring boiling water over my hands than I would of taking poison. And yet I will show you that I can thrust my hand into a blazing fire and suffer no harm.
"In an old book I read that to enable one to thrust one's hands into the fire all you had to do was to anoint them with a mixture of bol armenian, quicksilver, camphor and spirits of wine. I should prefer to leave that mixture alone, though in the book it is said that if one puts that mixture on his hands he may handle boiling lead.
"Perhaps some ancient magician did this, but I think he depended more on water than on anything else. If your hands are wet there is formed on them a film of moisture which, for a moment, will enable you to withstand high degrees of dry heat.
"In another old book I read that if one prepared himself with 'liquid stortax,' which is juice from a certain tree growing in Italy, he could enter fire, bathe in fire, put a burning coal on his tongue, and even swallow fire.
"Now I am not going to let you into all my secrets. You shall see—what you shall see!" concluded Joe.
As intimated before, the method Joe Strong used is not going to be printed here. You have been given some genuine ancient formulae, safe in the knowledge that some of the ingredients can not be obtained. And the modern substitutes are not going to be told. Enough to say that Joe had "prepared himself."
The young magician looked to see that all was in readiness. Perceiving that it was, he retired for a moment to a cabinet set up on the stage, and when he came out he was ready for his tricks.
Joe advanced to what seemed to be an elaborate candelabra in which seven tapers were set. He stood in front of this a moment, and then he announced:
"Having lived on a fire diet so long I have a bit to spare. I will light these candles without using a match."
He waved his hand over the candelabra. Sparks were seen to shoot from his finger tips, and in an instant the seven lights were glowing. That was an electrical trick. In reality the candles were gas jets, made to look like wax tapers, and Joe lighted them from an electric current produced by a dry battery he carried on his person.
He then proceeded to his main trick. He picked up a plate. It seemed to contain pieces of bread. Joe touched the edge of the plate to a flame of one of the candles. In an instant the plate was ablaze, and Joe calmly began putting the blazing stuff on it into his mouth.
Cube after cube of the blazing "bread" he lifted up on a fork and thrust between his lips. And he seemed to enjoy the "eating" of it.
The audience was spellbound. Every one's eyes were on Joe Strong doing his fire-eating trick.
The plate was empty. Joe looked about as though for something else hot to eat. He caught up an article from a table. Holding it to the flame of a candle, it was at once ablaze.
And then, with a thrilling cry, Joe Strong leaped from the stage, his two hands, held high above his head, seeming to be enveloped in a mass of fire. And with this fire held over him, he ran toward the tank in which Benny Turton did his "human fish" act.
The next instant Joe Strong, apparently ablaze all over, dived into the tank.