Balancing chair on chin.
Holding child three years old at arm's length.
Lying with the head on one chair and the heels on another without any intermediate support, and in this position allowing an apparently heavy but really light trunk to be placed on his chest.
The whole wound up by his dancing a negro breakdown to imitation banjo[A] on the piano, the entire audience patting Juba.
Now another performer appeared on the stage, dressed in extravagant imitation of the one who had preceded him, and commenced parodying in a still more extravagant style all the motions of the professional acrobat. We expected something grand! After innumerable flourishes he brought forward a small three-pound dumb-bell, laid it on the floor, and, bowing meekly to the audience in different parts of the house, he stooped down as though about to make an immense muscular effort, grasped the dumb-bell, slowly stretched it forth at arm's length, held it there a second or two, and then laid it down again, made a little flourish with his hands, and a low bow, just as they do in the circus after achieving something extra fine. In this way the performer went on burlesquing till we all roared with laughter. When he had retired, a conjuror appeared and exhibited numerous tricks, such as the ring trick, tricks with hat and dice, cup and ball, etc.; but as all these need machinery, we will not describe them at present. One or two, however, we may explain. No. 1. The performer presented a pack of cards to one of the audience and begged him to select a card; this the performer then took in his own hand, and carried it with its face downward, so that he could not see it, and placed in the middle of the floor of the stage; he then produced a large brown-paper cone, and placed it over the card, and commenced talking to the audience, telling them what he could do and what he could not do: finally he informed the audience that he could make that card pass to any place he or they chose to name. Where would they have it? One said one place, one another, till finally he pretended reluctantly to accede to one particularly importunate person's wishes, and declared that it should be found in the leaves of a certain book on a certain table at the back of the audience—and there it was, sure enough. This was done by having a piece of waxed paper attached to a thread lying ready in the middle of the floor; on this waxed paper the conjuror pressed the card, the thread being carried out under the screen at the back, where stood a confederate, who quietly pulled the card out from under the cone, and while the conjuror was talking he walked round, entered by another door, and placed the card in the book, where it was subsequently found.
Another trick consisted in his allowing a person to draw a card which he was requested to examine carefully, and even to mark slightly with a pencil. While the spectator was doing this, the performer turned round the pack in his hand so as to have all the faces of the cards upwards except the top one, which showed its back; he then desired that the card might be slipped anywhere into the pack; he then shuffled them well. Of course, on inspecting the pack he soon detected the selected card, it being the only one with its face down, which, after various manipulations, putting under cones and what not, he returned to the audience much to their surprise.
These efforts at legerdemain were certainly not very brilliant, but they amused the audience and were easy to do. We should like to give a few more of his simple tricks, but with one illusion-trick we will close the chapter, for which purpose it will serve, as it formed the finale to the conjuror's performance.
He stepped forward and said:
"I have shown you many wonderful things, but they are as nothing compared to what I can do. My supernatural power is such that I can lengthen or compress the human frame to any extent I please. You doubt it? Well, I will show you. You see Mr. Smith, yonder; he is a rather tall man; six feet two, I should judge? Well, I will throw him into a trance, and while he is in that state, I will squeeze him down to a length of about three feet, and I will have him carried to you in that condition. I must only insist upon one thing, and that is, that you do not say hokey pokey winkey fumm while he is in the trance; for if you do it might wake him up, and then he would be fixed at the height of three feet for the rest of his life; I could never stretch him out again."
Mr. Smith was requested to step behind the curtain. He walked forward, pale but firm and collected. Soon after he had disappeared we heard strange noises and fearful incantations, accompanied by a slight smell of brimstone and a strong smell of peppermint. After a few minutes the tall Mr. Smith was carried in on the shoulders of two men a perfect dwarf, as promised by the conjuror, and as represented in the following cut.