Practising conjuring—Why I rarely play cards—The great Maskelyne and Cooke box trick—I make a trick box of my own—The “Flying Lady” who flew—away—In partnership with Gypsy Brown—My life with the show folk—I begin to make money—The kings of the fair grounds—Caravan life and cookery—The Romany people and their ways—Gypsy Brown cheats me—How the “bluers” work—Fights in the Fair Ground—The etiquette of the showmen—In a boxing booth—Taking on all comers—A rough life—“Do a slang to get a pitch”—The tricks of the travelling boxing-booth proprietors—A gypsy duel with cocoanut balls.
During the period when I was working for Jimmy Jennings at his “covering the spot” stall I had lots of spare time on my hands, for of course we only occupied our pitches for comparatively short intervals of an evening, and then only on certain days of the week, Saturday being always one.
This leisure I utilised mostly in practising conjuring tricks, and in card manipulation. In the beginning I used to use old tram and omnibus tickets for the latter purpose, and found them very useful, for being much smaller than ordinary playing cards they were of course more easily palmed or otherwise manipulated, while at the same time they afforded excellent practice to a comparative tyro, as I then was.
I may mention that at that time I rarely handled the cards themselves, and still more rarely played a card game. Nor do I now, at least not for money; and the same rule holds good, I have observed, with most professional conjurors and card-manipulators.
The reason of this self-denying ordinance is, of course, not very far to seek. Take my own case for example! If I should play cards for money, and win, although I have as much right to win as any other player taking part in the game, there is always the risk that the others—even one’s own friends—may think I have utilised my professional skill in order to take an unfair advantage of them; in other words that I have cheated them. While should I lose, people are apt to say: “Well, Carlton is not so smart with the pasteboards as we thought him to be, after all; the man’s a bit of a mug.” So that’s why I very rarely play.
It was, too, during my term of “apprenticeship” with Jimmy, if I may so term it, that I first became interested in the great Maskelyne and Cooke box trick. These two gentlemen were showing, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, a trick which consisted in a man being corded up in a locked box, and from which he freed himself in a few seconds.
At each performance they offered £500 to anyone who could make a similar box, and successfully duplicate the trick. Two young men, clever mechanics they were, set to work, and eventually succeeded in making a box and performing the trick. I, being at the time a lithe and supple youth, was placed inside the box at the trial exhibition, and I released myself and appeared outside in three seconds.
I should add that after I was placed in the box, it was locked, and then enveloped completely in a canvas cover, which was sealed and corded, as Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke had stipulated. Notwithstanding this they declined to pay the promised £500, and the case came into the Queen’s Bench, and was eventually carried through the Court of Appeal right up to the House of Lords.
Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke lost, and the two young men who had made the box got their £500, but of course I received none of the money. Nevertheless, I have mentioned the incident because it was indirectly the cause of my getting my first real boost up in my present profession. But of this more anon.
Suffice it for the present to say that I had learnt all there was to know about that particular box trick. And not only that. I had set to work on my own initiative, without saying a word to anyone, and had made a similar trick box of my own, and in regard to which, moreover, being a youth of an experimental and inventive turn of mind, I had introduced one or two notable improvements; or at least so I regarded them, and so, as a matter of fact, they eventually turned out. The reason for my mentioning this here will appear presently.