It follows that the conjurer, whose artifices are principally directed to the mind, must double his address to delude this obstinate resistance.
The clever man, on the contrary, when he visits a conjuring performance, only goes to enjoy the illusions, and, far from offering the performer the slightest obstacle, he is the first to aid him. The more he is deceived the more he is pleased, for that is what he paid for. He knows, too, that these amusing deceptions cannot injure his reputation as an intelligent man, and hence he yields to the professor’s arguments, follows them through all their developments, and allows himself to be easily put off the right scent.
Is not my problem proved?
Comte was also an object of interesting study to me, both as manager and as artist. As manager, Comte could have challenged the most skillful to a comparison, and he was a famous hand at bringing grist to his mill. The little schemes a manager employs to attract the public and increase his receipts are tolerably well known; but Comte, for a long time, did not require to have recourse to them, as his room was always crowded. At length the day arrived when the benches allowed some elbow room; then he invented his “family tickets,” his “medals,” his “reserved boxes for the prize-holders at schools and colleges,” &c., &c.
The family tickets gave admission to four persons at half price. Though all Paris was inundated with them, every one into whose hands one of these tickets came believed himself specially favored by Comte, and none failed to respond to his appeal. What the manager lost in quality he amply regained in quantity.
But Comte did not stop here; he also wished that his rose-colored tickets (the name he gave his family tickets) should bring him a small pecuniary profit, as compensation for reduced prices. He therefore offered each person who presented one of these tickets a copper medal, on which his name was engraved, and asked in exchange the sum of one penny. Suppose the ticket-holder declined, he was not admitted, and when matters came to that pass, people always paid.
It may be said that a penny was a trifle; but with this trifle Comte paid for his lights; at least he said so, and he may be believed.
During the holidays the pink tickets disappeared, and made room for those reserved for the school prize boys, which were far more productive than the others, for what parents could deny their sons the acceptance of M. Comte’s invitation, when they could promise themselves the extreme pleasure of seeing their beloved boys in a box exclusively occupied by crowned heads? The parents, consequently, accompanied their children, and for a gratis ticket the manager netted six or seven fold the value of his graceful liberality.
I could mention many other ways Comte augmented his receipts by, but I will only allude to one more.
If you arrived a little late, and the length of the queue made you fear the places would be all taken, you had only to enter a small café adjoining the theatre, and opening into the Rue Ventadour. You paid a trifle more for your cup of coffee or your glass of liqueur, but you were quite sure that before the public were admitted the waiter would open a secret door, allowing you to reach the paying-place in comfort and choose your seat. In fact, Comte’s café was a true box-office, except that the spectator received something in return for the sum usually charged for reserving seats.