“Of course not. There was a trick about it, but I don’t feel at liberty to tell you how it’s done. You see the trick, in a way, belongs to Professor Rosello.”
“Oh, I don’t want you to tell me. It would spoil it for me when I saw it again. I’m coming to-morrow night.”
“Come on,” urged Joe. “Here, I’ll write you out a pass. It isn’t often I get a chance to do that for a friend.”
They were showing two nights in this particular town, and Professor Rosello gladly allowed Joe to give Harry a free ticket.
“Say, you’re sure making out better than you ever would in Bedford, Joe,” commented his chum, as they parted that evening.
“Yes, I couldn’t stand it there. The deacon wasn’t fair to me.”
“Well, we boys miss you,” Harry said.
“Give ’em my regards when you go back,” Joe suggested, “and tell the deacon I never took his money.”
“I sure will, Joe.”
A few nights later, Joe, in his capacity as assistant, was helping the professor, who was doing an egg trick—balancing the egg on the end of a straw. The straws were genuine ones, as were the eggs. The secret lay in a little piece of apparatus, so small as to be readily palmed almost before the very eyes of the audience. It consisted of a little celluloid cup, so shallow as to be almost flat, but concave enough to hold the end of an egg. There was a little stem, half an inch long, on the lower side of this celluloid cup.