"It's all right," Joe whispered. "Can you manage to finish the trick if I put the cabinet back the connections?"
"Yes, I think so. Go ahead."
Joe called to the leader of the orchestra:
"Louder!"
The musicians had been softly playing some "shivery" music. At once they struck into a blare of sound. This would cover any noise Joe might make in putting the cabinet back in place, so that the two metal legs would rest in the electric sockets in the stage, which contained the conductors that supplied the electric current needed.
In another moment Joe lifted the cabinet, Professor Rosello and all, back to where it had stood at first. Again there was the grinning, glowing skeleton showing. The applause was renewed, and then the glow died out, and as the house lights flashed up there stood the professor in the cabinet, as at first, in his flowing silk robe.
Close observers might have noticed that he was quite pale, and he had to grit his teeth to keep back a moan of pain from the burns he had received.
"Now, gentlemen," said Joe to the committee, which had stepped down off the stage, "if you will kindly examine the knots, and loosen them, I shall be obliged to you. Quickly, if you please, as this act is very trying on the professor."
Joe wanted to get his friend back of the scenes as soon as he could, to have his burns dressed.
"Are the knots just as you tied them?" asked Joe.