“Why—er—yes, it is! But I don’t see how in the world you made it whole again.”
“That’s one of the secrets of magic,” returned Joe, smiling, and bowing to the applause that followed. His trick had been a great success, as he had hoped.
Professor Rosello now came on the stage to work one of his feats, and Joe retired to get ready for his part in it. And while he is doing that the explanation of the watch trick will be given.
It stands to reason that no one can take a perfectly good watch, step on it, break the crystal, beat it to pieces, ram it into a pistol and by firing it at a plant cause the timepiece to appear whole again among the roots. This is how it is done.
In the first place Joe had provided himself with the following articles for his trick: A paper bag, ordinary, except that inside it were some small lumps of hard sugar, held from rattling about by small strips of paper pasted over them. Also on one side of the bag was pasted a triangular piece of paper forming a sort of pocket, which was not visible when the bag was quickly held up in front of the audience. In a secret pocket of his suit Joe had a watch crystal which had been scored in crisscross fashion by a diamond, so that it appeared to be cracked in every direction. The cuts made by the diamond were so deep in the glass that a slight pressure would cause the crystal to break into scores of pieces.
The other piece of apparatus was a trick mortar and pestle. The mortar had a false inside bottom which fitted closely but not too tightly. Below this bottom Joe had placed, beforehand, the fragments of a cheap watch—wheels, springs and so on.
The pestle was also a trick one. In the large end there was a hollow, large enough to hold a watch, and the opening was closed by a piece of wood exactly the same shape and size as the false inside bottom of the mortar. The end of the pestle and the bottom of the mortar were interchangeable.
The pistol Joe used was the regular stage kind. That is it had two barrels. Into the larger the objects, in this case the fragments of a watch, were placed. The other barrel fired a light charge of powder.
The flowering plant was a real one—there was no trick about that except that the earth around the roots had been previously made loose, so it would pull up easily.
Joe, with all these things, was ready for his trick. He borrowed the watch and placed it in the paper bag.