Only for a second. While watchers gleamed in the crowd below, the handcuff king was seen to struggle, not frantically, but with a steady, systematic swelling and contracting of muscles, and almost imperceptible lithe, wrigglings of the torso.
The struggle went on. One minute—two—then three——
Would he do it? Hundreds in the crowd undoubtedly were asking that question. From above came an inarticulate shout. The muffled arms writhed one after another over Houdini's head. His hand, still encased in the sleeves of the strait-jacket, fumbled quickly and effectively with the buckles at his back. Another contortion and the strait-jacket slipped down over his chest, over his head, and was flung from his arms to the street, in a crumpled heap.
Houdini was free.
The arms waved. Houdini had triumphed—as he always triumphs.
Less than a minute later, while the crowd's cheers still rang against the grey walls of surrounding buildings, he slipped down the face of the building to the platform. The attendants received him in a twinkling, and he stood erect, unconsciously throwing back his broad shoulders.
The little man with the touch of grey at his temples bowed quietly, still with that imperturbable smile. And the crowd cheered him again, before it began slowly to dissolve.
Houdini duplicated this feat at the Boston Post, Boston, Mass., December 22, 1921, drawing the biggest crowd that ever crushed into Tremont Street.
