When Joe had caused enough fun and mystification with this trick, he walked back to the stage, picked up the figure and tossed it to a little boy in a front seat.
“Take it home with you, youngster,” he said. “See if you can make it behave as I did.”
Several interested ones around the boy examined the figure. There was no deception about it, and the giving of it away proved this. In fact Joe found that a good climax to the trick.
And now—how was it done?
Beforehand two black threads were passed from behind the scenes up through the rounds of the chairs, over the backs and up on the glass shelf, where they met in the middle, each thread ending in a little pellet of wax. When Joe apparently carelessly placed the figure on the glass shelf he fastened one of the waxed ends of thread to either side of the half-rounded bottom.
He then went entirely away from the stage, and all that remained was for the assistant behind the scenes to pull one thread to make the figure bow to the right, and another to cause it to nod to the left. Of course the assistant heard all that was said, and could govern himself according to the choice of the audience. It was an effective trick, and beautifully simple. You might even try it yourself, but be sure the black threads do not show. It is for this reason that most magicians have dark draperies for a stage background.
“Where do we go next?” asked Joe of the professor the night after he had first introduced his magic figure trick, which had gone so well with the audience.
“Hillsburg is the next town, and we ought to make quite some money there, Joe.”
“You deserve more money,” proceeded Mr. Crabb, “and I am going to give it to you. You are certainly a valuable addition to my show, and in time you will be able to carry on a whole performance yourself. You still have something to learn in palming, in making substitutions, and in manipulating cards. But that takes practice and time. I have great hopes of you.”
But alas for the hopes of doing a good business in Hillsburg! When they reached that town, they found that a circus was playing there on the same date as Professor Rosello’s show.