CHAPTER XVII
JOE LEARNS SOMETHING
The young wizard made a few “magical” passes in the air over the pistol he held up in front of the audience, which was now keyed up to a point of nervous anticipation. The man whose watch had been borrowed was half out of his seat. He seemed about to protest against the liberties being taken with his property, but his wife, cooler headed than he, whispered to him:
“It’s all right. You’ll get your watch back.”
“But how can I when he——”
“Hush!” she cautioned him.
“If agreeable to you,” went on Joe, smiling, “I will fire the fragments of the watch from this pistol, and cause it to appear, whole, reunited and undamaged, in that flower.”
As he spoke he aimed the pistol at a small, potted, flowering plant on a table at the back of the stage.
“I’ll cause the watch to appear hanging from a pink ribbon among the roots of that plant. And here is the ribbon I will use,” and Joe rammed down the barrel of the pistol a small length of silk ribbon which he picked up from a table near him.
He aimed his weapon at the plant and fired. There was the usual jumping and screaming from some of the women in the audience, as Joe walked over to the plant. In plain view of the audience he lifted it, roots, earth and all from the pot, and there, as he had said, dangling from a pink ribbon, was a watch.
“I believe this is your property, sir,” he said to the man who had lent the timepiece, and Joe detached it, ribbon and all, from a short branch of the plant over which the ribbon was looped.
“Is it your watch?” Joe asked.
“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.
That is, he seemed to do so, but, in reality, he slipped it into the little outside triangular pocket he had pasted there for it. He could now hold the bag up, with the side containing the watch away from the audience, and, as he showed both hands empty, every one thought the watch was in the bag. It was, in a sense.
Joe then twisted the bag up, making it conform to the shape of the watch, and when this point was reached he quietly slipped the watch out from the pocket into his hand, cleverly “palming” the timepiece. With the watch safe in his hand, he laid the bag on the floor of the stage. The paper still retaining its round shape, and no one suspected that the watch was not in it.
Then Joe stepped on the paper bag. Of course it sounded as if he had broken the watch crystal, but, in reality, what the audience heard was the crunching of the lumps of sugar.
Joe pretended to be much exercised as he picked up the bag, and as he did this, he slipped the watch into his secret pocket, and managed to put over its glass face the crystal he had previously prepared by scoring and criss-crossing with the diamond. When this was done Joe again palmed the real watch, but now it had over its face a glass that seemed to be cracked in all directions.
Reaching his hand, in which the watch was palmed, inside the bag, Joe seemingly brought out the cracked watch. Again he manifested much concern, and more so when a pressure of his thumb really broke the prepared glass.
Then he was ready for the mortar and pestle part of the trick. He put the fragments of glass on the paper bag, and lowered the watch, with its back toward the audience, into the pestle. This was done so that no one would see that the crystal was still whole and uncracked, which was the case.
The real watch was now in the mortar, but it did not actually rest on the bottom. Instead it rested on the false piece of wood, and beneath this wood, in a hollowed-out place, were the pieces of a cheap watch.
As Joe looked down into the pestle, as though to see that the watch was all ready to be pounded up, he “palmed” off the false head of the pestle. This left that instrument with a hollow head, inside which would fit the real watch, to be concealed from view by the loose false bottom of the mortar, when the pestle was lifted.
Joe now put the pestle into the mortar, slipping the opening in the pestle over the watch and false bottom, and by a slight rotary motion causing the false bottom of the mortar to fit itself into the pestle and stick there. The real watch was now concealed in the hollow head of the pestle, while the fragments of the cheap watch were exposed in the bottom of the mortar.
Joe now pretended that the pestle was not strong enough to smash up the watch as he wanted it, and used a poker. He laid the pestle on the table, which was a signal for the boy assistant to take it out behind the scenes. And while he had the pestle there the boy took out the real watch, quickly tied a pink ribbon through the ring, and then, going to one of the curtains, in which was a slit, he reached through this slit and suspended the ribbon on a short branch of the flower, letting it hang down out of sight behind the pot. Of course the audience did not see this, for the folds of the curtain concealed the slit. Besides, all eyes were on Joe.
The young wizard had now gotten the real watch just where he wanted it, on the plant, where he could “produce” it whenever he wanted to. But the trick was not yet finished. Joe ground away with the poker at the pieces of the cheap watch already in the pestle. He then showed the pieces to the audience, poured them out on the paper bag, where the pieces of glass already were. The whole was then wadded up, put into the trick pistol, and the rest was a mere matter of detail. Joe walked over, picked up the pot, pulled the plant up by the roots, the watch of course seeming to have been down in the dirt. And, naturally, the watch was not in the least damaged, though it seemed to have gone through all sorts of misfortunes.
The real secret of the trick, aside from the sleight-of-hand work necessary, lay in the prepared paper bag and the mortar and pestle, which were made for just such mystification as this.
“It went very well, Joe,” said the professor, at the conclusion of the performance. “That little piece of ribbon added to it.” For Joe had thought to put into the pistol a bit of ribbon such as that by which the watch was suspended. Otherwise he could not have accounted for the piece on the ring of the watch.
“Do you think they liked it?” Joe asked.
“I’m sure they did. You may do that trick at each place where we perform. And if you can work up any new ones, do so.”
“I will!” promised Joe, much delighted with his progress.
Inventing new tricks is not as easy as might be supposed, and for the next few days Joe suggested feats to Professor Rosello only to have them refused as not being effective enough or as too old. But Joe was not discouraged.
At a performance one night in the town of Cardiff, Joe had occasion to walk down among the audience to exhibit some pieces of apparatus, to show that there was nothing concealed about it. As he passed one row of seats he was surprised to hear a boyish voice say:
“Hello, Joe!”
He looked around and saw Harry Martin, one of his chums from Bedford.
“Why, hello, Harry!” Joe ejaculated. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“I’m visiting my uncle who lives here. But I never expected to see you in a show like this. I never was so surprised as when you came out on the stage. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“Oh, I’ve been with the professor some time,” said Joe quickly. “Ever since I—er—I came away from home. But come back of the scenes after the show, Harry. I’d like to have a talk with you.”
“And I with you, Joe. I want to tell you I don’t believe what they are saying about you, either.”
“Saying about me, Harry?”
“Yes. I’ll tell you later.”
Joe was puzzled as he went on with the trick, and he eagerly awaited the advent of his chum behind the scenes after the show was over.
“What is it they’re saying about me, Harry?” asked the young wizard. “Do they blame me for leaving a home I couldn’t stand any longer?”
“Not that so much, Joe. But don’t you know you are accused of robbing Deacon Blackford and setting fire to his place?”
“What?” cried Joe. “You don’t mean that!”
“Yes I do,” said Harry. “I mean that’s what you’re accused of, but I don’t believe it!”
Joe sank into a chair.