CHAPTER XIII
JOE’S HELP NEEDED
Joe could hardly believe his good luck. When he decided to run away he had no settled plans in mind. All he expected to do was to seek out Professor Rosello, and ask him what would be the best means of starting in on the chosen career. But to be engaged without any delay as an assistant was beyond Joe’s wildest hopes.
It had come about by a curious trick of fate, and Joe was very much pleased.
“Do you really mean it?” he asked the professor, as they stood on the dimly lighted stage.
“Mean it? Of course I do. My assistant who was to help me with to-night’s performance suddenly left, and I didn’t know what to do.
“As soon as I recognized you, I remembered that you had some knowledge of our way of doing things. Then, too, as I told you before, you have in you naturally, and because of practice, the makings of a magician. So I think you can very easily fill the shoes of my late assistant. He was clever, but not reliable. Of course I can not pay you much money. I will begin on ten dollars a week, and I’ll pay all your expenses. Later on, if you do well, as I’m sure you will, I’ll increase the amount, for you may be able to help me do more elaborate tricks, and so we will draw better houses. Does that satisfy you?”
“Indeed it does!” cried Joe.
This was luck in truth, for this, too, was more than he had hoped for. He would have been glad to work with the professor to earn merely his expenses for a while, until he learned something of the inside workings of magic.
“Now,” said Professor Rosello, “we’ll have to do some quick work, Joe. I’ll call you that, for I feel as if I had known you a long time. I’ll never forget how you saved my life, and you will never want a friend as long as I am alive. Where are you stopping?”
“No place, just at present,” replied Joe. “I came in on a freight train, after I ran away from home, and I looked you up as soon as I could after I had breakfast.”
Then Joe told the story of how he had left the home of his foster-parents.
“You had better put up at my hotel,” said the professor. “I’m stopping at a boarding house. It’s better for me than a regular hotel. I can get you a room there. I had planned to give a three nights’ show here, but when my assistant left I thought I’d have to cut it down to one. Now I’ll go ahead as originally planned, thanks to you.
“Now suppose we just run over what I do in the evening’s performance, so you’ll know what is expected of you.”
Professor Rosello hastily described to Joe the program—how he came out on the stage, rolling in his hands a red handkerchief, which he caused suddenly to vanish. Of course this was done by “palming.” While palming the handkerchief, which thus seemed to vanish into air, the professor would keep up a “patter,” or running line of talk, concerning the tricks he was to show that night.
“Of course you know,” said the professor to Joe, “that we have to depend on outside aid in doing what the public calls ‘tricks.’ That is, we have as our three main helpers, the table, the wand and the clothes we wear. I need not tell the son of Professor Morretti that the evening dress of a modern magician has in it many hiding places—pochettes, the French call them. They are secret pockets, placed where the performer finds he has best use for them. Into these pockets a borrowed watch, ring, handkerchief—anything not too large, in fact—may be concealed.
“Of course we bring the hidden things out at the proper time. But, as I say, the dress of a magician is important. I haven’t time to get you one, and my assistant took his away with him, so you won’t be able to do much for me in that line.
“Another great aid to us is our wand. From time immemorial a wand has been the symbol of magic. Ordinarily it is but a stick, a bit of ebony or ivory, and of course with that it is not possible to do any tricks. But the wand is valuable in that you can wave it in the air, or before a person’s face. Naturally their eyes follow the motion of the wand, their attention is taken from your other hand, in which you may have palmed, or concealed, something. And while their eyes are thus off that hand you can get rid of the palmed article, or put it in the place where you wish it next to appear.”
“Yes, I have read of that in some books treating of magic,” said Joe.
“The books don’t tell you everything,” said the professor with a smile, “but of course they are valuable. I want to tell you that nowadays we have two wands, instead of one. One is an ordinary piece of ebony, solid, and not prepared in any way. Then we have a combined hollow wand, in one end of which is concealed a small pistol, so that by a mere pressure on a spring, which is all but invisible, we can produce a shot. On the other end of the wand is a concealed claw and spring, so that I can draw into the hollow a silk handkerchief or light piece of cloth, making it disappear before the very eyes of the audience. Of course the substitution of the trick wand for the solid one must be made unseen by the audience.”
“Yes, I should think so,” commented Joe.
“The tall hat is another great aid to us who work in magic,” went on the professor. “But of late years it is hard to borrow one in an ordinary audience, so I don’t often use it. Years ago, when more men wore tall, silk hats, it was easy to borrow one from somebody in the audience, and do all sorts of tricks with it—or, rather, with one of my own which I substituted unseen. My hat, of course, was made for my purpose. It had secret compartments in it and the lining being black, they did not show when I held it up to show that, apparently, it was empty.
“I might state, Joe, that of course nothing ever comes out of a tall hat, or any other kind of a hat, my own, or that of any one else, unless it has first been put there. ‘Loaded’ is the term we use. That is to say, I must first put into the hat a live rabbit, a cannon ball, a piece of cheese, an egg—anything, in fact, that I wish to produce I must first put in the prepared hat. Then I can bring it out.
“So much for the hat. Only, as I said, tall hats are rather hard to borrow, so I often work with an ordinary derby, having one of my own made with a secret compartment. Only it has to be small, as derbies haven’t much spare space.”
“It would be great if we could work with a straw hat—especially if we gave a show in summer!” exclaimed Joe.
“Why, it would, yes. I never thought of that!” exclaimed Professor Rosello. “I believe we could have a trick straw hat made. Say, Joe, I’m glad to see you taking an interest this way.”
“Oh, I’m going to be a magician!” cried the youth. “I want to find out all I can about it.”
“It’s too bad your father didn’t live to tell you about his tricks,” said the magician. “He was a real artist, while the most of us are but imitators. However, it can’t be helped. I will teach you all I know if you want to learn.”
“I surely do!” murmured the boy.
“Now to finish my little preliminary talk,” went on the sleight-of-hand artist, “I will mention the table. That, or in fact several tables or little stands, are of great aid to a magician. In the early days the performers used a big table, all draped about with velvet, and concealed under this velvet was an assistant.
“When the magician wanted to cause an object to disappear he would place it on the table just over a hole, which was not in view because it was hidden by a trap-door. Then he would put a hollow cone or hollow block over the object, which would at once drop through the hole in the table, into the hands of the concealed assistant.
“But as performers became more clever they used simpler tables. Some, of course, seemed to be just spindle-legged affairs, but mirrors fitted in made a place where objects could be concealed, though it seemed as though the audience could look right through the legs of the table. But there are some tables which are not at all mechanical, except that they have a place at the back for a servante, or shelf, below the level of the table, and on this shelf objects can be placed when the performer has to get rid of them for the time being.”
“It sounds complicated,” murmured Joe.
“It’s simple when you understand it,” said the professor. “I sometimes use as a servante a little mesh bag, which I can fasten to the back of a chair—that is if the back can’t be seen through. Then of course I have little tables—console tables they were called in the days of Robert-Houdin.
“These tables stand close to the draperies which are back of the stage, and above the tables is a slit cut in the curtain, the fall of the draperies concealing it. Through this slit my assistant can thrust his hand and take away or substitute certain articles. That will be part of your work.
“So then, with the wand, with a suit having in it many secret pockets, and with the help of a servante in one form or another we do most of our tricks, never forgetting that palming is one vital need. Of course I have elaborate pieces of apparatus—that is elaborate for me, some performers carry much more than I do. But the tendency in these days is to get away from big mechanical effects, since the audience knows there is some trick about them, even though it can’t be seen.
“Of course you know some of what I have told you, Joe, but I thought it no harm to repeat it. Now I’ll give you a little drill, and we’ll be ready for to-night.”
The professor told Joe the principal tricks he proposed performing that night. In comparatively few of them was Joe’s aid needed, except that he was to be on the stage to hand the professor articles when wanted, or to remove them—passive sort of work.
But in one trick—that of making a young man disappear when seated in a chair on the stage in full view of the audience—Joe took an active part.
Having gone over as much as he thought necessary, Professor Rosello took Joe to the boarding house, where they would stay for at least three nights. There, too, the magician gave Joe more instructions, and had him practice some palming and card tricks. Joe was naturally good at these.
“I’m almost glad my regular assistant failed me,” the professor said, “for I think you are going to be better, Joe. You have a natural aptitude for learning this art.”
“I’m glad you think so,” remarked the youth, “for I want very much to perfect myself in it.”
That afternoon Joe and the professor went through several tricks for practice, taking care that no small boys or other unauthorized persons were secretly in the theatre to see how the tricks were done, and so reveal them.
The night of the performance came at last, and Joe went to the Opera House with the professor. They went back on the stage to see that all was in readiness for the curtain to rise.
“A good house,” remarked Professor Rosello, as he peered through the peep-hole of the curtain. “We’ll make a little money to-night, Joe.”
“I’m glad of it. I wouldn’t want to bring you bad luck.”
“Oh, I think you’ll bring me good luck. Now we’re ready, I guess.”
The curtain went up, the professor came out, bowing and smiling and making the handkerchief disappear by cleverly palming it, then slipping it into one of his secret pockets, afterward seeming to draw it from the end of his wand. To do this, of course, he merely palmed it again, and let it gradually appear as he wished.
Then he did several stock tricks; one of them being the bringing forth of a small jar of goldfish seemingly from a man’s derby hat.
There was no trick about the hat. The professor went down off the stage and borrowed it, but, on his way back, while his back was toward the audience, he slipped into the hat a flat dish filled with water and live goldfish. This dish Joe had passed to him a moment before from behind the scenes, through one of the slits in the curtain.
The professor concealed the flat jar of goldfish, water and all, under his vest, but the dish had over it a tightly fitting cover, made of a thin sheet of rubber.
As he walked back on to the stage Professor Rosello slipped the dish into the hat, and, as he lifted it out, in full view of the audience, he, unseen by the spectators, snapped off the rubber cover with his thumb. Thus he seemed to bring out a jar of fish in real water, and there was no doubt about the realness of the water, nor the life of the fish. They could be seen swimming about, and the professor dipped his hand in the water, sprinkling it about the stage. Then he passed the hat back to the man.
The goldfish had been purchased in a store that day, and kept in water until needed, Joe putting them in the flat dish, and slipping over the rubber cover just before they were to be used.
“Now for my next trick,” began Professor Rosello, “I shall want to borrow a boy or young man. I don’t want one who has any friends, as I am going to cause him to disappear, and of course no one wants that to happen to a friend. I am going to make him totally disappear. Who will lend me a young man for that purpose?
“Come now,” he went on, as there was a pause. “I see several young ladies here with young men. Surely one of them can be spared. No? No one will volunteer?”
There were smiles and some laughter.
“I see a nice young man right here,” the professor said, coming down the steps, and standing close to a young girl and her escort. He laid his hand on the youth’s shoulder.
“You haven’t any use for him, have you?” he asked the blushing girl. “May I not make him disappear?”
“No!” she laughed.
“Very well, then I must find some one else.”
There was a movement in the back of the house as if some one intended to volunteer, but, as the professor did not want this, he forestalled it by quickly saying:
“Never mind. I see you are all afraid. Well, I will call on my young assistant. He is not of much use to me, or to the world either, so I will make him disappear.”
This was Joe’s signal to come forward for one of the more elaborate tricks.