“Because the natural formation of most people’s noses allows them to see straight down beneath an ordinary bandage. I doubt if one child out of a hundred who plays ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ is really unable to see at all.”
“That’s so,” said Embury, “when I played it, as a kid, I could always see straight down—though not, of course, laterally.”
“And noses are different,” went on Hanlon. “Some prominent beaks could never be blindfolded, but some small, flat noses might be. However, this refers to ordinary blindfolding with an ordinary handkerchief. When it comes to putting fat cotton pads in one’s eye sockets, before the thick bandage is added, it necessitates previous preparation. So, my powers of contracting and expanding my forehead muscles allow me to push the pads out of the way, and enable me to see straight down the sides of my nose from under the bandage. Of course, I can see only the ground, and that but in a circumscribed area around my feet, but it’s enough.”
“How?” asked Eunice, her piquant face eagerly turned to the speaker. “How did you know which way to turn?”
“I don’t like it,” declared Aunt Abby. “I hate it—I’m absolutely disgusted with the whole performance! I detest practical jokes!”
“Oh, come now, Miss Ames,” and Hendricks chuckled; “this isn’t exactly a joke—it’s a hoax, and a new one, but it’s a legitimate game. From the Davenport Brothers and Herrmann, on down through the line of lesser lights in the conjuring business—even our own Houdini—we know there is a trick somewhere; the fun is in finding it. Hanlon’s is a new one and a gem—I don’t even begin to see through it yet.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Mason Eliott. “I think to do what he did by a trick is really more of a feat than to be led by real thought-transference.”
“Except that the real thing isn’t available—and trick-work is.” Hanlon smiled genially as he said this, and Embury, a little impatiently, urged him to go on, and begged the others to cease their interruptions.
“Well,” Hanlon resumed, “understand, then, that I cannot be really blindfolded. No committee of citizens, however determined, can bandage my eyes in such a manner that I can’t wiggle my forehead about sufficiently to get the pads up or down or one side or the other until I can see—all I want to.” Hanlon knotted up his frontal muscles to prove that a bandage tied tightly would become loose when he relaxed the strain. “Understand that I can see the ground only for a few inches directly at the front of me or very close to my sides. That is all.”
“O.K.,” said Hendricks. “Now, with your sight assured for that very limited space, what is next?”