Now, there are many short and secondary dashes of legerdemain, which a spirited performer will be able to introduce in addition to the tricks which he is exhibiting. There are also several ornamental or fanciful little tricks which would not rivet the attention of an audience if exhibited by themselves. These, though unqualified to shine as the main object of observation, may nevertheless be worked into the evening’s entertainment as amusing by-play, and may thus prevent the interest of the spectators from flagging. They may come in as accessories—as stimulating side-dishes—causing the entertainment to bear a continuous character, instead of merely consisting of sundry isolated experiments.
Let me be allowed to substantiate what I have advanced by reference to some of the tricks which I have already described.
The reader will have seen that, in some of the tricks explained in previous papers, there is simply some one definite object to be carried out. For instance, in the two tricks which concluded the last paper, the performer simply undertakes to throw the spools off the tape, or to restore a tape which has been cut. He sets about this, accomplishes it, and the trick is over. This is all very well as far as it goes. If the trick is really a good one, it is like a host furnishing his guests with a solid joint to satisfy their appetite; and it may do so. But still it comes short of a lively entertainment. It is confessedly dull for an audience to come to pauses or gaps between isolated tricks. Their attention is unoccupied while the performer, having finished off one trick, is making mute preparations to introduce some other trick wholly unconnected with what has gone before. Such a method will not keep awake the lively interest that the skilful combination of the conjuror’s art will sustain. I maintain that varied by-play and supplementary sets-off will greatly heighten the interest of the performance.
It will also serve to disarm the suspicious and incredulous, preparing them to believe what they might otherwise stand on their guard against. Bare tricks brought forward as isolated experiments give time for the mind to take its estimate of their possibility; and, of course, in attempting to exhibit wonders, the improbability of them is apt to stare people strongly in the face. They are perfectly convinced that a dime cannot fly into an orange at the other end of the room, that ink cannot become water, nor a hat be safely used as a frying-pan; but if you interpose appearances and movements that are consistent with such processes going on, they are gradually prepared to recognize as a legitimate result what you have previously indicated as the contemplated end of those processes.
The amplification or fuller development which I speak of can be effected at any of the following stages:
1. In the introductory matter leading on to the main trick or transformation:
2. In the subsequent stages of its development; or,
3. In the winding-up smartly or variedly the conclusion of a trick.
I do not say that every trick is to be amplified or loaded with extraneous matter in all these different stages, (that would be to run into the contrary extreme of over-cumbrous amplification;) but I will endeavor to point out the effect of such development in the above three stages of a trick, and if I can show that amplification in each several one may be an improvement, I may be considered to have made good my proposition that any trick may be improved and rendered more interesting by one or other of those amplifications.
Let us see if we cannot lay down a bill of fare for our guests which, going beyond a solid joint, (good as that may be in its way,) will furnish them with some relishing accessory in the first course of a trick, some stimulant side-dishes with its second course, or may please with some bon-bons before the entertainment is quite concluded.