The young wizard made a few “magical” passes in the air over the pistol he held up in front of the audience, which was now keyed up to a point of nervous anticipation. The man whose watch had been borrowed was half out of his seat. He seemed about to protest against the liberties being taken with his property, but his wife, cooler headed than he, whispered to him:
“It’s all right. You’ll get your watch back.”
“But how can I when he——”
“Hush!” she cautioned him.
“If agreeable to you,” went on Joe, smiling, “I will fire the fragments of the watch from this pistol, and cause it to appear, whole, reunited and undamaged, in that flower.”
As he spoke he aimed the pistol at a small, potted, flowering plant on a table at the back of the stage.
“I’ll cause the watch to appear hanging from a pink ribbon among the roots of that plant. And here is the ribbon I will use,” and Joe rammed down the barrel of the pistol a small length of silk ribbon which he picked up from a table near him.
He aimed his weapon at the plant and fired. There was the usual jumping and screaming from some of the women in the audience, as Joe walked over to the plant. In plain view of the audience he lifted it, roots, earth and all from the pot, and there, as he had said, dangling from a pink ribbon, was a watch.
“I believe this is your property, sir,” he said to the man who had lent the timepiece, and Joe detached it, ribbon and all, from a short branch of the plant over which the ribbon was looped.
“Is it your watch?” Joe asked.