I boldly commenced my performance with a trick which must eminently excite the imagination of the spectators. I had to borrow a ring, place it in a pistol, and fire through a window opening from the stage into the sea that bathed the theatre-walls. This done, I would open a box, previously examined, closed, and sealed by the audience, and in it would be found an enormous fish bearing the ring in its mouth.
Full of confidence in the success of the trick, I proceeded towards the pit to borrow a ring. Of twenty offered me I selected one belonging to an accomplice of Pinetti’s, and begged him to place it with his own hands in the barrel of the pistol I handed to him. Pinetti had told me that his friend would use for this purpose a copper ring, which would be sacrificed, and that I should return him a gold one in its place.
The spectator obeyed me. I then opened the window and fired the pistol. Like the soldier on the battle-field, the smell of powder excited me; I felt full of fun and gaiety, and ventured on a few jests, which pleased the audience. Taking advantage of the general hilarity, I seized my magic wand and traced my cabalistic circles round the box. At length I broke the seals and triumphantly produced the fish, which I carried to the owner of the ring, that he might take it out of the fish’s mouth.
If the accomplice play his part well, he must evince the greatest stupefaction, and, indeed, the gentleman, on receiving the ring, began looking around him, and his face grew very long. Proud of my success, I went back on the stage and bowed in reply to the applause I received. Ah, my dear Robert! this triumph lasted but a short time, and became to me the prelude of a terrible mystification.
I was proceeding to another trick, when I saw my spectator gesticulating to his neighbors, and then turning to me as if wishing to address me. I fancied he was going on with the farce to dispel any suspicion of collusion; still I thought he went too far. What was my surprise, then, when the man rose and said:
“Excuse me, sir, but it seems as if your trick is not over, since you have given me a copper ring set with paste instead of my diamond solitaire.”
As a mistake seemed to me impossible, I turned on my heel and commenced my preparations for the next trick.
“Sir,” my obstinate spectator again took the word, “will you have the goodness to reply to my question? If the end of your trick be a jest, I acknowledge it as such, and you can return me my ring presently. If it be not so, I cannot accept the horrible substitute you have handed me.”
Every one was silent: none knew the meaning of this protest, though many fancied it was on ordinary mystification, which would end in still greater glory for the performer. The claimant, the public, and myself found ourselves in the same state of uncertainty; it was an enigma which I alone could solve—and I did not know the word.
Hoping, however, to escape from a position as critical as it was ridiculous, I walked up to my pitiless creditor, and, on looking at the ring I had given him, I was startled at finding it was really coarsely gilt copper. “Could the spectator to whom I applied have been no accomplice?” I thought. “Could Pinetti desire to betray me?” This supposition appeared to me so hateful that I rejected it, preferring to attribute the fatal mistake to chance. But what should I do or say? My head was all on fire.