“For this trick,” went on the professor, “I need a young man. I have this—er—useless specimen——” and he tapped Joe on the shoulder. There was more laughter from the audience. “I also need,” proceeded Professor Rosello, “a chair, a sheet and a piece of paper. They are here,” and he brought forward a chair, a black cloth and a sheet of a newspaper. “There is nothing extraordinary about any of these articles except about my young assistant. And he will feel most extraordinary when he starts to vanish into thin air.
“The paper, as you can see, is the front page of your local publication, The Herald,” and the performer held up a sheet of paper. Every one in the audience could see that it was what it purported to be—at least on one side, and that was the only side held up to the crowd in the Opera House.
“This sheet of paper I will place on the stage,” went on the professor, and he suited the action to the words. “On top of the paper I will place this chair, on which my young assistant is going to sit,” and seemingly without any special preparation the magician set the chair on the paper, one leg being near each of the four corners of the sheet.
“Now if you will kindly take your seat in the chair, we shall proceed,” said Mr. Crabb, otherwise Professor Rosello. Joe sat down, his heart beating a little faster than usual, for he wanted the trick to work perfectly, and much depended on him.
“Good-bye,” said the professor with mock solicitude, as he shook hands with Joe. “This is the last we shall see of you,” and he pretended to be distressed. Several boys in the gallery shouted their farewells to Joe in laughing tones. He waved his hands to the audience, which was curiously expectant.
“I will now cover my assistant, chair and all with this sheet,” said the professor. “I do that because the disappearance of a person sometimes is attended by painful scenes, and I do not wish to make you suffer. This sheet was once white,” he went on, as he shook out a black cloth, turning it about so that both sides could be seen. There was nothing tricky about that, it was evident.
“It used to be white, but in traveling about the sheet lost its original color, and, as I do not carry a laundress with me, it has never been washed.”
As a matter of fact the cloth had always been black. It had to be, so the audience could not see through it to witness the details of the trick.
“I will now cover my assistant in the chair with this white-black sheet,” continued Professor Rosello, “and when I raise it he will be—gone!”
He draped the cloth over Joe’s head and shoulders, letting it fall to the floor of the stage on all sides of the chair. He then took up his “pistol” wand, which fired a blank shot.