Fortunately the audience had called for the very kinds with which he had provided himself, with the exception of the Rhine wine. No one called for that, but Merry pretended to hear some one call, and forced the wine on a spectator, getting rid of it in that manner.
When he went off the stage to get the trick bottle, he hastily took off his coat and hung under his right arm a rubber bag containing port wine. From this bag a rubber tube ran down his sleeve to his hand. There was a hole in the bottle near the bottom. When he rinsed the bottle in the presence of the audience, he kept his thumb over the hole. While drying the bottle with the towel, he inserted the rubber tube in the hole. Then it was an easy thing to go down into the audience and pour wine from the bottle, which seemed inexhaustible. Whenever he wished to pour out some wine he would press against the rubber bag with his arm, and the wine was forced out through the tube into the bottle.
The glasses were of special make and of very thick glass, making a bulky appearance, but holding a very little wine, so that the marvel was not nearly so great as it seemed.
The "Talking Head" trick was the next one Frank decided to perform. This illusion was made effective by means of a set of mirrors which made it seem that the audience could look right through beneath the table on which the "severed head" seemed to rest, while, in fact, the mirrors hid the body to which the head was attached.
A clever assistant is much needed in performing this trick, and Merry had a good one in M. Mazarin. The business was carried through successfully.
Then came the "Spirit Mysteries," which were a series of cabinet tricks, none of them exactly new, but all of them performed well enough to satisfy the now thoroughly good-natured audience.
The final trick of the evening was announced—"The Educated Fly."
This was something new, and the audience was interested.
Frank had attempted none of the feats requiring extraordinary skill and a large amount of practice, thus escaping the pitfall into which Thaddeus Burnham had feared he would stumble.
Yet he had given an hour of genuine pleasure to the wondering audience.