At that point Tom should have brought the handkerchief around in such a way as to slip the china egg out into his other hand. Then I was to come forward and cut open the cake, displaying an egg (also china), previously placed within. And then Tom was to have produced the real egg, and in order to prove that it was a real egg within the cake (exchanging the two by palming one of them), he was to break the real one into a dish.
All this, which sounds so complex to describe, was simple enough as we had rehea.r.s.ed it, and even with Tom"s blunder of dropping the real egg in the handkerchief, might have turned out all right if he had not let go one of the corners of the handkerchief as he whirled it around his head. I, Peter Samuels, stage manager and director of that extraordinary performance of "Marvellous Feats of Prestidigitatorism," will never forget my sensations when, as I advanced solemnly with the cake, a white body whizzed through the air and struck me full on my expansive shirt bosom, breaking with a splash, and running down over my vest and trousers in a yellow stream.
I remember the scared look on Jonas"s face, the perfectly horrified expression that Tom wore, and also remember dimly wondering if a guinea-fowl"s egg would make as large an omlet as that of an ostrich.
For it seemed to me as if I was swimming in egg batter.
The next instant the audience broke into a perfect roar of laughter. I threw the cake down on the table and rushed back of the curtain again, leaving Tom and Jonas to get out of the blunder as best they could, while I wiped off the egg as best I could with my handkerchief.
How that audience did roar! Tom stood with a knife in his hand waiting to cut the cake. He said afterwards he felt mad enough to jump down off the platform and pummel half a dozen big boys on the front seat. But he kept his temper, and when the laugh died down he cut the cake open and showed the egg, saying something about its being a small-sized egg on account of spilling a part of it on the way. So that mystified the people a little and restored the reputation of the performance, at least for a while.
The next trick was an easy one, and went off without any slip, and was applauded. Tom and Jonas had the stage to themselves for a while, and I staid out of sight and scrubbed at the egg. But do what I could, my shirt bosom was ruined.
Then came the "Watch Mortar" trick, and to my dying day I shall never forget how that turned out. Neither will Tom.
We had an apparatus made to resemble an old-fashioned druggists" mortar.
It was really made of tin, in two compartments, so that any heavy object dropped into it would depress a false bottom and drop through on a shelf back of the magician"s table, at the same time letting into the upper part of the mortar the fragments of an old watch previously pounded into bits. Then Tom was to pretend to smash the borrowed watch, and afterwards fire a pistol at me and take the real watch from my vest pocket, where he would place it when he went back of the scenes for his pistol.
He described his intentions and asked for a watch from the audience.
Uncle Job Cavendish, the village barber, handed up an old silver-case time-piece that was worth perhaps $3.
Tom took it, and after a good deal of talk, dropped it down into the mortar, picked up the ridiculous club used for a pestle, and began to pound away. There was a great smashing sound, and poor Uncle Job looked serious. But he did not begin to look half so serious as Tom did, and I saw in a minute that something was wrong.
He dropped the pestle, and said hurriedly to the audience, "Ladies and gentlemen, I find I have left my pistol in the other room. Excuse me while I run after it."
Then Tom came into the wing where I stood, and jerking his own gold watch out of his pocket, thrust it into mine, and whispered to me fiercely, "That mortar stuck in some way, and I smashed Uncle Job"s watch into chicken-feed! Here is mine! I"ll have to give him something back, or we"ll be mobbed out of the village!"
Then he grabbed up the stage pistol and hurried back. He rammed the remains of Uncle Job"s poor watch down the big mouth of the pistol, and I stepped forth, baring my egg-stained bosom to the pistol shot. Bang!
went the powder from the false chamber of the pistol, and Tom, with a ghastly smile, stepped up to me and pulled his watch out of my pocket, and with the utmost courage leaned out over the edge of the platform and handed the watch to Uncle Job, saying, "Here you are, sir! Not only as good as new, but changed from silver to gold!"
Uncle Job was so taken by surprise that he sat with open mouth. He took the watch and looked at it in dumb astonishment. The audience was taken as much by surprise as he was.
Tom and Jonas held a hurried consultation, and at once announced the next trick. There was a great deal of confusion in the hall. Several voices shouted out, "Show the silver watch!" Tom paid no attention, and the next half-dozen tricks were so well done that the people applauded, and we began to gain fresh courage.
But alas! The next on the programme was the "Handkerchief that will not burn."
Almost any one with a little practice can pa.s.s a handkerchief obliquely through the flame of a candle without burning it. All that is needed is the proper dexterity. And this caution must be heeded. The handkerchief must be free from cologne or perfumery, which contains spirits, and is very inflammable.
This was Jonas"s trick. He called for a lady"s handkerchief, and who should hand one up but Sally Conners, the prettiest girl in the village, and the one of all with whom Jonas was smitten.
But to the grief of Jonas, Sally was very much addicted to perfumery, and had that evening drenched her handkerchief with it. Jonas lighted the candle, keeping up a running talk about making the handkerchief enchanted, and then he pa.s.sed it through the flame.
The effect could not have been more certain if he had poured kerosene on the candle. Poor Sally"s delicate perfume-drenched handkerchief blazed up in an instant like a display of fireworks. Jonas squeezed his hands around the fragments that were left, and danced around the stage, howling at the sudden pain of the burn. And the audience went wild. I thought it never would stop laughing. Tom was desperate. I could see he meant to conclude the performance before we had ruined our reputations forever.
With becoming modesty he addressed himself to the audience when it had tired of laughing, and announced that the entertainment would close with the startling trick, "The pudding in the hat."
He and Jonas had practised this until they felt sure of it. Like all sleight-of-hand tricks, it is easy enough if properly done.
First Jonas prepared a dish of batter made of eggs broken in, sh.e.l.ls and all, a little flour, milk, raisins, and mola.s.ses. A ridiculous mixture, from which, he a.s.sured the audience, would come forth a beautiful pudding, nicely baked in a stovepipe hat, which he would wear on his own head to prove that there was nothing in it. A sentence which had a double meaning, and to which Jonas fully a.s.sented in every particular before the evening was over.
Well, the dish that held the batter was poured into the hat, apparently.
Of course it was really poured into a tin which exactly fitted into the hat, and which contained also a second tin concealing the pudding, tipped into it by Tom at the proper moment. Then the next part of the trick consisted in placing the hat on Jonas"s head, while he was to strut about the stage jauntily. Then the hat would be removed, and lo!
in the centre of it would be found the pudding nicely baked.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEN THE WHOLE HAT SEEMED TO LET GO LIKE A BROKEN RESERVOIR.]
Now, whether Tom made some mistake in getting those tins canted into the hat properly or not will never be known. Perhaps he pulled the hat down too hard over Jonas"s brows when he put it on him, and so loosened something. At any rate, Jonas had not taken two steps before a streak of batter was seen running down over his face. Then the whole hat seemed to let go like a broken reservoir, and the milk and mola.s.ses and egg and flour streamed down in a shower over the miserable Jonas.
He tried to pull the hat off, and did so, leaving on his head, however, the tins, which gave him the most astonishing appearance possible. Tom fell back on the table in an agony of laughter, and in doing so sat down on the dish that had contained the batter. The audience simply cried itself hoa.r.s.e with laughter. Sally Conners screamed with all her might, and all the farmers" boys, who were present for miles around, haw-hawed, and the old folks almost died looking at poor Jonas. In the midst of it all, I, Peter Samuels, stage director, drew the curtain, and with the other two performers stole down the back stairs, and made a run for home, and so the great sleight-of-hand performance came to an end.
The Colby people never forgot that performance. We never did, either.
Uncle Job kept Tom"s watch until he left for college, and then gave it back to him, and Tom bought him a new silver time-piece. The widow Colby and her grandchildren realized a good sum from the entertainment, and the next vacation we three boys spent in the city. I am afraid Jonas has lost the favor of Sally Conners, for she never can speak of him without laughing. But then Sally always did laugh on almost any provocation.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]
So far as is known, no schedule of interscholastic track and field records has ever before been printed, and although the table published in this issue is as accurate as can be made under the circ.u.mstances, still there are doubtless a few errors scattered around in it somewhere that will be discovered by sharp-eyed readers in the very near future.
If the latter will inform this Department of the mistakes as soon as they are found out, the table may be depended upon to be absolutely exact the next time it is printed--and it certainly will be offered in better form. To-day I have been obliged to put two bicycle events and two hammer and shot events on the list, because the interscholastic a.s.sociations in the various parts of the country are about evenly divided in the choice of distances and the use of weights. I have left out entirely such acrobatic events as the hop, step, and jump, and throwing the baseball, because they are not athletic, and do not deserve to be recognized on any interscholastic programme. Perhaps a year from now the school a.s.sociations will have come to the conclusion that, take it all in all, it is really better to have a uniform measure of efficiency in sport as well as in anything else, and then a comparative table will be of more value.
INTERSCHOLASTIC RECORDS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1895.
Event. Record. Maker.
100-yard dash 10-1/5 sec. F. H. Bigelow.
220-yard run 22-2/5 " F. H. Bigelow.
440-yard run 50-3/5 " T. E. Burke.
Half-mile inn 2 m. 4-1/5 " J. A. Meehan.
Mile run 4 " 34-2/5 " W. T. Laing.
Mile walk 7 " 17-3/5 " A. N. Butler.
120-yard hurdle 15-3/5 " A. F. Beers.
220-yard hurdle 26-1/2 " Field.
Mile bicycle 2 " 34-1/5 " I. A. Powell.
Two-mile bicycle 5 " 18-2/5 " Baker.
Running high jump 5 ft. 11 in. S. A. W. Baltazzi.
Running broad jump 21 " 6 " C. Brewer.
Pole vault 10 " 7 " B. Johnson.
Throwing 12-lb. hammer 125 " R. F. Johnson.
Throwing 16-lb. hammer 111 " 10 " F. G. Beck.
Putting 12-lb. shot 40 " 3/4 " A. C. Ayres.
Putting 16-lb. shot 39 " 3 " M. O"Brien.
Event. School.
100-yard dash Worcester H.-S.
220-yard run Worcester H.-S.
440-yard run Boston English H.-S.
Half-mile inn Condon, N.Y.