The patriotic introduction over, I began my performance.
My audience were collected on the first row of stalls, so that, in order to address my explanations to them, I should have had to keep my head constantly down, which would have eventually become troublesome. Hence I determined to look round the house, and address the benches just as if they were well covered.
For their part, my audience made all possible row to prove their satisfaction. They stamped, applauded, shouted, so as almost to make me believe the house full.
The whole performance was a mutual exchange of compliments, and the spectators saw the last of my tricks arrive with considerable regret. This, however, was not announced on my bills, for I reserved it as the best of my surprises.
“Gentlemen,” I said to my audience, “as I require three persons to assist me in performing this trick, will any gentlemen present have the kindness to come on the stage?”
At this comic invitation the public rose en masse, and obligingly placed themselves at my disposal.
After my three assistants had promised to stand at the front of the stage and not look round, I gave each an empty glass, announcing that it would be filled with excellent punch so soon as they expressed the wish, and I added that to facilitate the performance, they must repeat after me a few cabalistic words borrowed from the enchanter Merlin.
This jest was only proposed in order to gain time, for while we were performing it with bursts of laughter, a change was being carried out behind my kind assistants. The table on which I did my tricks had been removed, and another brought forward on which an excellent supper was spread, and a bowl of punch crackled in the centre.
Génet, clothed in black and a white cravat, and armed with a spoon, was stimulating a spectral flame, and when my assistants expressed a wish to see their glasses filled with punch, he said, in his most solemn voice,
“Turn round, and your wishes will be accomplished.”