“You are playing a very sorry jest, sir.”
“But, monseigneur,” I said, with the greatest calmness, “you have no occasion to be frightened; I merely wish to prove to these gentlemen the perfection of your watch. I beg you not to be alarmed; it will escape scathless from all the trials I subject it to.”
With these words I stamped on the case, which broke, flattened, and soon presented but a shapeless mass. At first, I really fancied the cardinal was going into a fit; he could scarcely restrain his passion; but the Pope then turned to him:
“Come, cardinal, have you no confidence in our sorcerer? For my part, I laugh like a child at it, being convinced there has been some clever substitution.”
“Will your Holiness permit me to remark,” I said, respectfully, “that there has been no substitution? I appeal to his eminence, who will recognise his own watch.”
And I offered the cardinal the shapeless relics of his watch. He examined them anxiously, and finding his arms engraved inside the case, said, with a deep sigh, “Yes, that is certainly my watch. But,” he added, dryly, “I know not how you will escape, sir: at any rate, you should have played this unjustifiable trick on some object that might be replaced, for my chronometer is unique!”
“Well, your excellency, I am enchanted at that circumstance, for it must enhance the credit of my experiment. Now, with your permission I will proceed.”
“Good gracious me, sir, you did not consult me before destroying the watch. Do what you please, it is no concern of mine.”
The identity of the cardinal’s watch thus proved, I wished to pass into the Pope’s pocket the one I had bought the previous evening. But I could not dream of this so long as his Holiness remained seated. Hence, I sought some pretext to make him rise, and soon found one.
A brass mortar, with an enormous pestle, was now brought in. I placed it on the table, threw in the fragments of the chronometer, and began pounding furiously. Suddenly, a slight detonation was heard, and a vivid light came from the vessel, which cast a ruddy hue over the spectators, and produced a magical appearance. All this while, bending over the mortar, I pretended to see something that filled me with the liveliest astonishment.