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WOES OF A WIZARD
BY

DAVID DEVANT
(Managing Partner of Maskelyne & Cookes Provincial Company)

LONDON
S. H. BOUSFIELD & CO., Ltd.
NORFOLK HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, W.C.

TO MY FRIEND

JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE

THE MASTER OF MY CRAFT

PREFACE
OMETIMES, when the work has been
finished and we have been sitting round
the fire, some of my friends have been kind
enough to be interested at hearing me relate
my experiences. It has been suggested to
me that these true tales which amused my
friends might also interest the public. I can
only hope that the man who put that idea
into my head knows the public. If my little
book helps anyone to pass an hour away
pleasantly, I shall be well satisfied.
D. D.
Hillside,
Belsize Road, Hampstead.
July 1903 .

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT COURT CONJURER

PAGE
9

CHAPTER II
THE HOT PUDDING

19
CHAPTER III

OTHER PEOPLES WOES

27
CHAPTER IV

PISTOL STORIES

39
CHAPTER V

DEADHEADS

49
CHAPTER VI

THE LADY WHO WOULD NOT VANISH

67

CHAPTER VII
THE MAN WHO MAKES MONEY

78
7

Contents
CHAPTER VIII

SOME QUEER REQUESTS

PAGE

CHAPTER IX
CONFEDERATES AND MESMERISTS

97

CHAPTER X
A REAL ROMANCE

113
CHAPTER XI
126

A FEW PUPILS
CHAPTER XII
MINOR WOES

135
CHAPTER XIII

MY NOTE BOOK

151
CHAPTER XIV

SELLS

162
CHAPTER XV

SOME COMPENSATIONS

173

WOES OF A WIZARD
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT COURT CONJURER

HE only lessons in conjuring that I ever

received were obtained in rather a curious
way. I came across a man who was giving
conjuring and second-sight performances in a
small shop in Islington. The price of admission
was a penny, and even then business was not
always good. In order to stimulate the curiosity
of those who hung about outside the shop door,
the conjurer would occasionally emerge from
the shop and give a free show on the pave
ment. His usual plan was to produce money
from the whiskers of benevolent old gentle
men, from babies feeding bottles; in fact,
from any place where money is not usually to
be found. The conjurer once made the fatal
9

10

Woes of a Wizard

mistake of producing half-a-crown from the

pocket of a cabman, who had got down from
his box to go to the public-house next door.
The cabman immediately said that the half
crown found in his pocket by the conjurer was
his half-crown. He said that he knew it was
his, because he had taken only one half-crown
that day and so he should stick to it. At the
time five people were clamouring to pay their
fivepence and to go into the show, and therefore
the conjurer did not stop to argue the matter
with the cabman. I believe that the cabman
was subsequently charged with attempting to
pass a bad half-crown.
I was one of the five persons who paid for
admission to the show on that day, and 1 was
so amazed by what I saw there, that when it
was over I asked the conjurer to tell me how
one of the tricks was done. At that time I had
no knowledge of conjuring or conjurers. The
man replied to my request by making loud
remarks about the impudence of the rising
generation. Then he drew the attention of the
public on the pavement to the size of my hat,
and the roundness of my face ; in short, I pro
vided him and his audience with a free enter
tainment for about five minutes. Then I gently
hinted that I would pay for the information I
desired. The mans manner immediately changed.

The Great Court Conjurer

11

He assured me that he had intended no offence

by his remarks about myself; and on my telling
him that I felt it an honour to be spoken to by
the Great Court Conjurer, as he called him
self, he took me into one corner of the shop
and explained one simple trick, for which I
paid one shilling and sixpenceall the money I
possessed.
You see, sir, its all quite simple, he said
in a loud voice, as he showed me out of the
shopall quite simplealmost as simple as
you are.
Then the people on the pavement giggled
at me again. I thought it was most unkind
of the Great Court Conjurer, after I had spent
so much good money with him. But I forgave
him, and when I had saved up another shilling
I went to him again. He remembered me most
kindly, and taught me another trick. In this
way I must have spent about fifteen shillings
with the Great Court Conjurer, and I was quite
disappointed when he told me, one day, that
he was leaving the neighbourhood.
Look ere, he said, if youll get your friend
to do me a picture according to my orders, I`ll
give the ole game away to yer.
The offer seemed so generous that I at once
closed with it. I had occasionally taken a young
artist with me to see the show, and the Great

12

Woes of a Wizard

Court Conjurer had been very interested in

watching him while he sketched. I wished
that there might be no misunderstanding between
the Great Court Conjurer and myself, so I went
back to him and asked him what he meant by
giving the whole game away."
"Why, Ill teach yer all the bloomin tricks
there ever was, is, or could be, he said.
"All those Ive seen you perform? I asked
eagerly.
" Yes, he replied, all of em, and a lot
more.
I was so delighted at the prospect of learning
the complete art of conjuring (I have since dis
covered that one has never learnt all there is to
learn about conjuring) that I rushed off at once
to my artist friend, and begged him to begin a
picture there and then. I forget what I promised
him for his work, but I know that he considered
the sum insufficient. He pointed out that by
simply putting his brush on a small canvas a
few times he was going to make my fortune.
Therefore, I ought to pay handsomely.
You may be quite sure, he said, "that a
man like your friend the conjurer is no fool.
If he had ever thought of being a fool he would
never have been a conjurer. Well, then, since
he is no fool, his opinion is worth having ; and
if he has seen, from the few sketches I have

The Great Court Conjurer

13

made at his place, that my work is good, you

may be quite sure that it is very good ; other
wise he would not offer to give away all the
secrets of his work for one small picture from
me. Why, man, your fortunes made! In
exchange for one small picture from me you
learn all there is to learn about conjuring from
a master of the art."
Inexperienced as I was, I had my doubts about
the Great Court Conjurer being a master of
the art; but I did not discuss the point, and
eventually we came to terms.
What sort of a picture do you think he
wants ? asked the artist.
I dont know. He said a picture `to my
orders.
Oh," said the artist, I expect he wants a
little landscape, or something of that sort, to hang
outside his place as an attraction to the public.
You know," he added confidently, I always
thought that conjurer was a cut above the
ordinary conjurers; he has refined tastes, you
may depend upon it.
Seeing that I was striving every day to
become a conjurer myself, I thought this was
rather unkind, but I was so anxious not to deter
my friend from painting the picture that I
refrained from starting a discussion about con
jurers and their refinementor lack of it.

14

Woes of a Wizard

Ive come to paint that picture for you,

said my friend, the artist, as we entered the shop
in which the Great Court Conjurer performed.
And when its done you wont forget your
part of the bargain ? I put in.
No, I wont forget,when it's done, he
added meaningly.
Oh, I can do it for you, said my artist,
somewhat haughtily.
Very well, then, said the Great Court
Conjurer, now what I want is this.
I le proceeded to explain at great length the
kind of picture he required, and I can see now
the long series of different expressions that flitted
across my artists face as the old showman
spoke. At the beginning my friend just stuttered
out Oh! at the end of each sentence, but
towards the close he seemed to have recovered
his presence of mind, and he began to argue
with the conjurer.
But I would much rather paint you a picture
of my own making, he said.
No, said the conjurer, I dont want none
of your landscapes (he put two adjectives before
landscapes), or sea-scenes, or portraits, or anythinkexcept just the picture I told you of. Is
it a deal ?
The artist said he would think it over for
half an hour. I could not blame him; for

The Great Court Conjurer

15

certainly the picture that the Great Court

Conjurer required was no ordinary picture.
The scene was to be the largest state-room in
Windsor Castle. The two principal figures in
the picture were to be the Great Court Conjurer
and his wife. The lady was to be sitting on the
throne, her eyes were to be bandaged, and the
Great Court Conjurer was to be holding up a
pocket-handkerchief. The picture, according to
the mans own directions, was to be called :
What ave we ere? The State Performance.
The Queen and all the members of the royal
family were to be sitting or standing near the two
performers. The Great Court Conjurer stipulated
that the likenesses should be good, that the
men should have on military or naval uniforms,
and that the ladies were to be wearing eveningdress and large quantities of diamonds. Orders
and decorations were to be in great profusion,
and the place was to be brilliantly lit by tall
candles. On one side was to be a small table
on which various flags, ribbons, and other articles
used in the performance were to be prominently
displayed. Some of the members of the royal
family were to be applaudingapparently with
great energy,some were to be open-mouthed
with astonishment, and some were to be laughing
behind gold fans studded with rubies and
sapphires. In the distance there was to be a

16

Woes of a Wizard

supper-table, sumptuously laid, with at least two

dozen powdered footmen standing on either side.
One footman, more gorgeous than the others,
was to be standing near the conjurers table.
From the attitude of this special footman it was
to be plain to every one that he had been told
off to act as the conjurers assistant.
The Great Court Conjurer bargained for several
other details, but they were comparatively un
important. He was to have three large diamonds
in his shirt, and a massive ring on the third finger
of his right handthe one that held the handker
chief. The conjurer's wife was to have an orangecoloured silk dress ; on her left arm were to be
three heavy gold bracelets, and on her right arm
there was to be a mass of lighter bracelets set
with various precious stones. Her fingers were,
of course, to be covered with rings.
When the artist said that he would like to con
sider the offer for half an hour, he really meant
that he wanted to find out how much money I
would give him for the work.
It was pleasant to see the wonderful and rapid
change that had come over the artist. He had
often talked to me of loving art for arts sake,
an occupation that he had hitherto followed quite
easily, for his pictures had certainly never brought
him in a halfpenny. Now that he had practically
received his first commission, he soon forgot that

The Great Court Conjurer

17

there was to be no art in the composition of his

picture, and he haggled with me over the price in
a most inartisticbut very business-likefashion.
I forget how much I offered him, but I know that
he eventually agreed to accept it. I need scarcely
add that we anticipated the Times system of
payments. I promised to wipe out the debt by
monthly instalments.
I shall never forget that picture. The Great
Court Conjurer insisted on seeing it every evening
and giving the artist suggestions for its improve
ment. I remember well the look of dismay that
came into the conjurers face when he first saw
the picture of himself holding up the handker
chief. The handkerchief painted by the artist
was quite white. The conjurer suggested that
it was too white. Could it not be toned down a
little, so as to be more in keeping with the dove
colour on the walls ? When the artist refused to
make the handkerchief grey, the conjurer sug
gested that a red pattern on the handkerchief
would be better than a plain white one. So the
Great Court Conjurer had the red pattern on his
handkerchief, and he had a crimson silk handker
chief tucked into his waistcoat. When the picture
was finished the conjurer said that he wished
that it had been twice the size.
You should have said so before, replied the
artist, gruffly.
2

18

Woes of a Wizard

Well, said the conjurer, if youll make my

hair a little bit longer, and make my moustache
curl a little bit more upwards, I wont say any
thing more about it.
At last then, the picture being finished, I was
able to realise one of my ambitions. I was to
find out how all the Great Court Conjurers tricks
were done. I went to him with a large note-book
and said that if he would speak slowly I would
write down all he had to say.
You neednt trouble to write nothin, he said
with a grin. You'll find out how to do all those
tricks Ive taught yer and sold yer, and all those
tricks I do myself, and lots more of emyoull
find em all out if youll get a book called
Modern Magic by Professor Hoffmann,
They're all explained there. Get the book and
read it."
I have since had reason to be grateful for this
advice. But at the time I was bitterly disap
pointed with the Great Court Conjurer.

CHAPTER II
THE HOT PUDDING

have hot pudding when I was

I DIDyoung.not always
At times the menu was bread and

cheese, and mostly bread. Even in those days

I had an idea that if only I learnt enough about
conjuring the hot pudding would come to me
eventually, and, more or less, my hopes have been
realised. I suppose it must have been because
as a boy I was so fond of hot pudding, that I
deliberately worked hot pudding into the first
professional conjuring performance I ever gave.
I was very young. That was why I engaged a
small hall at five shillings for the afternoon, and
expected that I should be able to make some
pocket money by doing tricks for two hours.
There were two prices of admission. If you
were a parent you paid twopence ; if you had the
misfortune (you will soon see why it was a mis
fortune) to be a child, you paid a penny. For
this modest sum you were not only entertained
by me, but you were entitled to share in the
19

20

Woes of a Wizard

Grand Fairy Distribution which came at the

end of the performance.
I have never promised so much at an enter
tainment since. In order to get the hall for five
shillings an afternoon, I had to engage it for a
series of performances, and so I announced that
each Saturday there would be a complete change
of programme. The first entertainment went
capitally. I had practised hard, and had caused
my name to be put in large letters outside the
hall. I had an idea that this, in itself, would
be sufficient to draw a large crowd.
I was not disappointed with the size of my
first audience but I noticed, after the first few
tricks, that the first two rows appeared to be
unduly anxious about the Fairy Distribution.
At length, some of my audience entreated me to
come to that part of the performance. Now to
have done that would have upset my scheme.
To tell you the truth, I could not have given
the Fairy Distribution in the middle of the
entertainment, but had I confessed my inability
I should have lowered myself in the eyes of
my audience. Therefore I had to pretend that
the fairy had made an appointment to distribute
at half past four, and would not appear until then.
As a matter of fact the good fairy had taken the
money at the door, and while the performance
was in progress the good fairy was regulating

The Hot Pudding

21

the size of his distribution to the size of the

audience.
Have you guessed what my Fairy Distribu
tion was? It was a real large, hot pudding
beautifully cooked, with plums inside. In shape
it was a roly-poly. I remember that at the
first performance the plums in the pudding were
very numerous ; we wished to attract the audience
again.
The pudding was introduced adroitly. I
flattered myself that I had hit upon a new and
original trick, and in that respect I was right.
No conjurer of my acquaintance has ever dared
to conjure with a hot pudding ; I dont think that
many of them have thought that their audiences
wanted hot pudding.
My great trick was really a variation of the
omelette trick. You know that ? The conjurer
brings on a silver-plated dish (mine was not
silver-plated) and shows it to be empty. He
breaks an egg into it, puts on the lid, waves his
wand, takes off the lid, and the omelette is made !
I began my trick by chopping up a few pieces of
suet and mixing them with plums. Then I put
on my lid, waved my wand, and brought out the
nice, savoury-smelling, hot pudding. I know that
at the first performance I had great difficulty in
restraining myself from tasting the pudding. I
almost hoped that some of my audience would be

22

Woes of a Wizard

so amazed at its sudden appearance that, they

would refrain from eating it ; then I should have
had to encourage them by helping myself to a
piece. However, the pudding was so popular
that afternoon that it all disappeared as quickly
as it had been produced ; and I was left with the
pleasing reflection that though I was exceedingly
hungry, my success as a conjurer was assured.
I may mention that I received nothing for the
performance. The money-taker, who had been
responsible for the making of the pudding, assured
me that there was no change.
My hot pudding trick being so successful I
repeated it on the following Saturday. To save
expense I magically converted the same
chopped suet and plums that I had used at the
first performance. Once more the trick was
successful, and once more I received no money
for my afternoon's work. This was not exactly
what I had expected, and so I stipulated that on
the following Saturday afternoon the pudding
should be of a cheaper kind. I did not discover
until the consequences could not be avoided, that
I had made a mistake in thus changing the
pudding. I know now that I ought to have
changed the money-taker. No sooner had I
reached the Fairy Distribution in my third
performance than I saw that my audience were
becoming restless ; and just as I was about to

The Hot Pudding

23

touch the dish with my magic wand and disclose

the hot pudding, a small, lean boythe sort of
boy that eats all day without getting fatex
claimed in a high, squeaky voice :
Please, were tired of pudden. We should
like somethink elsesweets, or nuts, or oranges.
The suggestion horrified me. Here was my
great popular success failing at the third per
formance ! The worst of it was that directly one
boy had spoken the others began to chime in.
They said unkind things about my pudding.
They referred to its stodginess, and to the fact
that it was not half so good as the puddings that
mother made on Sundays. I reasoned with the
grumblers. I pointed out to them, first of all,
that they had spoken too late ; they ought to
have sent in their requests before the commence
ment of the performance. Then the spokesman
I can see him now, the ugly, awkward little
brutereplied to me. He said that according
to the bill stuck upon the door I had promised
to give a complete change of programme every
Saturday. This was the third Saturday, and
they had had hot pudding twice before. I made
the obvious reply that I used a fresh pudding at
every performance and therefore the programme
was changed. To tell you the truth, I was a
little annoyed at this ingratitude and interruption,
and I pointed out to them that if they did not

24

Woes of a Wizard

appreciate the performance there were plenty of

other little boys in the neighbourhood, who would
be only too pleased to get an afternoons amuse
ment and some pudding for a penny.
By this time I knew that the pudding was
getting horribly cold and clammy, so I said the
magic words, and a few others that I hope were
not audible, and I brought my magic wand down
with a smash on the tin cover. The grumblers
ate the pudding in silence.
The audience at the next performance was
smaller; the Fairy Distribution was accord
ingly reduced in size ; and the supply of plums
was very meagre. The absence of plums seemed
to have an exhilarating effect on the front row.
They asked for plums ; they suggested that I
was keeping back the plums for myself, and one
boy even went so far as to say that he could
make a better pudding with a lump of dough
and a beer-can. I treated the remarks with
silent disdain.
Every week after that my Saturday afternoon
audience became smaller; consequently the
Fairy Distributions were almost plumless.
At lastit was one wretched, wet Saturday
afternooneverything seemed to go wrong all at
once. One boy, who had been helped by me
most liberally to hot pudding, complained that he
did not want quite so much at once ; he preferred

The Hot Pudding

25

to take it in small doses. He then passed his

pudding on to another boy. Unfortunately, he
passed it on rather quickly ; in fact, the other
boy said that the pudding had been thrown at
him. He retaliated by returning the pudding
most promptly. In a moment there was a free
fight in which my hot pudding was the principal
weapon. And a most powerful weapon it made.
The fight had not been raging half a minute
before five of the boys were suffering from
temporary loss of eyesight. The pudding seemed
to be unusually adhesive that afternoon.
On the following Saturday the audience made
no pretence of eating the Fairy Distribution.
They just took sections of it and threw them at
each other. This went on for several Saturdays,
and at last the hall-keeper complained to me.
He said he did not mind my amusing the boys
as long as they threw the pudding at each other
(I had never wanted to amuse them in this way),
but he objected to the pudding being thrown on to
the walls of the hall. It was true that it was not
his hall, but he had to clean it; and he assured
me that pieces of pudding that had become
set" on the walls could not be removed without
damaging the paint. I had to admit that he was
justified in objecting to the Fairy Distribution.
The pudding seemed to have peculiar properties.
When it was first produced it looked like a nice,

26

Woes of a Wizard

useful pudding, but when it was divided up into

small pieces and allowed to get cold, it seemed to
be a kind of imitation putty. Since then I have
often heard of tricks falling flat, and jokes falling
flat, but I never remember having seen or heard
of anything that fell quite so flat as that pudding.

CHAPTER III
OTHER PEOPLES WOES

often been the cause of indicting a

I HAVE
great deal of misery on some of the kind

people who have come to see me. You may

remember that in one of my card tricks I borrow
a ladys handkerchief and give a pack of cards
to another member of the audience. A card is
selected .without my seeing it; the pack is shuffled
and given to someone else ; the ladys handker
chief is then placed in a small cabinet ; a little
slow music is played, and as the last chord dies
away I open the cabinet and take out the hand
kerchief. Then I ask the gentleman who chose
the card to tell everyone what it was. On one
occasion it happened to be a five of hearts. I
took the ladys handkerchief out of the cabinet,
held it up, and, as usual, showed that the card
which had been chosen had mysteriously got into
the cabinet, and had printed itself on the hand
kerchief. There was the five of hearts right in
the centre of the handkerchief! It was always
27

28

Woes of a Wizard

my custom when doing this trick to tell the

lady quietly, as I handed the handkerchief back
to her, that I had not damaged the handker
chief in any way, and that the red paint would
all disappear in the wash. Upon the particular
evening to which I refer, the lady was extremely
kind, and said that she did not really mind
whether the five of hearts came out in the
wash, or whether it remained on the handkerchief,
because it was only an old one. Then she
crumpled it up and put it in her pocket. Later
on in the evening she took it out, and used it for
the purpose for which a handkerchief is intended,
and in doing so painted her nose a bright ver
milion. As the audience were leaving the hall
I overheard two old ladies talking about the lady
who had lent me the handkerchief.
Oh, yes, my dear, said one lady, shes
a terrible sufferer, she ishas such awful
attacks of indigestion. Did you notice her nose
to-night? Quite painful, Im sure.
I once made up my mind to play a little
practical joke on a friend of mine who was very
keen on collecting engravings. His walls were
covered with pictures, and so I had no difficulty
in selecting one well-known one, and getting
an artist friend to imitate just one corner of the
picture. I took this corner and fastened it on
my friends picture. When I went round in

Other People's Woes

29

the evening to show them a few tricks, l could

hardly keep myself from laughing for thinking
what a frightful state of mind my friend would
be in, when he saw me go up to one of his pet
engravings and apparently tear off the corner.
Of course I was going to continue the trick by
restoring the picture in the way that the torn
playing card is usually restored. I was so
eager to do that trick, and to see my friends
face absolutely glowing with anger, as he saw
one of his pet pictures apparently destroyed,
that I ate scarcely any supper. When the time
came for me to do my tricks I began on the
torn engraving. I was not disappointed in seeing
my friend get very angry ; indeed, his face was
absolutely livid. I felt a little embarrassed
myself, more especially when I discovered that
I had torn off a corner of the wrong picture !
He had two copies!
A very pretty trick with white roses can be
performed by anyone, without much knowledge
of sleight-of-hand. You get two or three
roses and a little analine dye of various colours.
You keep the colours quite distinct and dust
a little dye on each rose. Then shake each rose,
and the fine powdered dye will not be noticeable.
Then bring your roses before your audience
and tell them that by watering them with your
magic spray you will cause them to become

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Woes of a Wizard

coloured. The magic spray simply contains a

little eau-de-cologne or other scent. The spirit
from the scent dissolves the dye, and immediately
each rose is coloured. I had taught a pupil
this once, and on the next morning I received
the following letter from her father :
Dear Mr. Devant,.

Will you kindly not teach my daughter any

tricks which will entail the dyeing of the drawing-room
carpet, grand piano, and the hearthrug? I may tell
you that these are only a few of the articles which
have been coloured since you gave your lesson last
night ; but we are hoping that the dye from the dining
room carpet and curtains can be removed. At present,
however, the entire household is being dyed. Dye
is in the air. My daughter was going out to a dance
this evening, but she is afraid that people will think
her rather strange unless she can manage to get her
arms and hands any other colour but an apple-green.
I shall be very glad if you will confine your tricks, in
the future, to some of a less harmful kind.
Yours faithfully."

I may add that the writer of this letter had

a certain amount of justification for it. The
trick I described was very pretty, but it is
certainly very messy unless you are careful.
That is why I never perform it myself. I once
tried it at the Egyptian Hall, and a friend who
came into my dressing-room told me he had
never been in such a pretty place in his life, and

Other Peoples Woes

31

he supposed I had done it myself. He was quite

right, but I did not tell him that I had never
meant to do it myself.
I was once doing the watch and rabbit trick in
a hall, and had borrowed the watch of a friend of
mine. When he came on to the stage he
whispered to me :
I have a small bottle of champagne in my
pocket; you can produce that if you like. No
one knows anything about it, and it will be quite
safe.
When the time came for me to produce the
rabbit, I remarked upon the fact that the watch
was tied round the rabbits neck with a blue
ribbon. I said to the man : This rabbit is
not a teetotaler, Im afraid ; and with that I
produced his bottle of champagne. This trick
was highly successful, because my friend forgot
all about the bottle of champagne, and left it
with me.
This variation of the trick was so successful
that I determined that I would add it to the trick
in my other performances. I thought that bottled
champagne might be rather a dangerous stuff to
handle, and so I did the trick with half a bottle
of port. The trick was an immense success,
because the friends of the man on whom I found
half a bottle of port never believed that he had
not had it on him when he came into the hall.

32

Woes of a Wizard

After a time, however, although that trick went

down very well, it was not quite so good as I had
anticipated it would be. The fact was, men
started to claim the port after I had produced it.
just as the man was leaving the stage he would
put out his hand and say:
"Well, you found that little bottle on me and
Im very glad. Ive got an invalid wife at home ;
itll just do her good, Ill take it with me.
Thanks."
I imagine that at that time there must have
been a large number of men in England who
had invalid wives, and who yet managed to
get away to come and see my performance when
I was in their town. I must have given away
many dozens of half-bottles of port to invalid
wives in this way. Perhaps you may be wonder
ing why I have included that story in the chapter
called Other Peoples Woes." But then you
dont know that port. I do. I bought it and I
know what it cost ; and I know what you have
to give for half a bottle of good port.
On one occasion 1 borrowed a wedding-ring.
I usually have some little difficulty in getting a
lady to lend me a wedding-ring, but on this
occasion I was kept waiting for fully five minutes
before I at length induced a dear old lady to
let me use her wedding-ring in a trick. Of course
the wedding-ring had to be vanished, and travel

Other People's Woes

33

round the room, and in and out of peoples

pockets, and generally behave in a way that is
quite foreign to any ordinary self-respecting
wedding-ring.
You will know that it is equally certain that at
the end of the trick the wedding-ring was dis
covered neatly folded up in a piece of tissue
paper, which was sealed up in an envelope,
which was found in the centre of a new loaf of
bread. When I handed the envelope back to
the lady she protested that the ring was not
there. People began to titter ; but on this occasion
I did not lose my head, for I was absolutely
certain that the ring was there, because I had
put it there myself.
The lady continued to tell me in a very
loud voice that I had lost her wedding-ring;
and that she was completely undone ; that she
wished she had not lent it to me ; and that it
served her right ; and that she would never see
it again. It was soon evident that the remainder
of the audience regarded me as a human monster,
who had come there with a fixed intention of
swindling a harmless old widow out of her
wedding-ring. At length, because the people at
the back were getting rather noisy in their
demands for that wedding-ring, I suggested that
I should come down from the platform and help
the old lady find it. Her friends jumped at the
3

34

Woes of a Wizard

idea ; several of them beamed with delight and

giggled as I came off the platform. They
said :
Why, my dear, its all a jokenow comes
the trick. He's got it on him somewhere. He'll
find it all right. Dont cry.
He had not got it on him, and it was not the
trick, I could only assure the old lady that the
wedding-ring had been in the packet, and that she
must have dropped it, and that it must have rolled
away. I told her that if she would kindly wait
until after the other people had gone I would
have the place swept and searched, and would
guarantee that the ring should be found. I am
happy to say that the audience seemed a little
reassured at this. When the performance was
over I had the place searched, and the wedding
ring was discovered between the cracks in the
flooring. It was a very small ring, and it had
been worn a great deal.
When I returned it to the old lady, with my
profuse apologies for the inconvenience I had
caused her, she retorted that it was not her
wedding-ring. She said she knew her wedding
ring ; and if it had not been for the fact that she
was a kind woman and had had sons of her own,
and did not wish to see me in trouble, she should
have known what to do. I protested that I had
done nothing except to restore her wedding-ring,

Other People's Woes

35

and she said that I was only making matters

worse, and that since I appeared to be so much
in need of the necessaries of life that I could
stoop to robbery, she would give me the ring
which I had found, and which she hastened to
add was not her own.
I do not know what would have been the end
of that little mishap, but just at that moment the
old ladys companion came into the empty hall
and recognised in me the conjurer who, a year
before, had given his services on behalf of their
Sunday School. The companion assured the old
lady that the wedding-ring I had found was her
wedding ring, and that I was not by profession a
thief. The old lady begged my pardon, and said
that she had not noticed the wedding-ring was
hers because she had not been wearing her right
glasseswhich I thought was a very feeble excuse
for her rudeness. However, we parted very good
friends, and I have often appeared at that hall
since on behalf of a particular charity in which
that old lady is very interested. But I do not
borrow her wedding-ring.
Once when I was riding in a bus on a wet
day, I found a two-shilling piece amongst the
straw on the floor of the bus. The bus con
ductor looked at me rather enviously, and I
thought I heard him murmur something about
some people having all the luck, and I afterwards

36

Woes of a Wizard

discovered three two-shilling pieces at the far

end of the bus, and a half-sovereign under the
seat. When we got to the end of the journey I
heard the bus conductor tell the driver that
some one had been throwing money about inside
the 'bus that morning. He had seen a bloke
pick up about sixteen shillings, and he meant to
use his dinner-time by turning the 'bus inside out.
The driver said that, in that case, if there was
any money to be had, he would willingly assist
the 'bus conductor in finding it.
It was a very hot day, and I understand that
those two men worked exceedingly hard for the
whole of their dinner-hour. I took the same
bus on my return journey, and the conductor
told me what had happened. He said that both
he and the driver had lost their dinner, and the
least I could do was to give them some of the
money I had found. I told him that he was a
very careless man, and that he had not searched
the bus properly. Then I found half-a-crown
in the straw and got off. I saw him go up on to
the top of the bus, and I heard him inform the
driver that I was a blooming miracle.
I once unconsciously caused a nice white-haired
old gentleman to have a very unhappy five
minutes. I had asked him to add up nine figures
on a slate ; and whether it was that he was old
and he had forgotten how to do simple addition,

Other People's Woes

37

or whether it was that he was so overcome at

being singled out for such public recognition, I
do not know ; but I am absolutely certain that he
could not add 225, 326, 421. He got very red
in the face; made out that the answer was in
millions ; and generally upset the trick.
I was once recognised by a man in church who
was assisting in taking the collection. He
became very confused when he saw me, and
withdrew the collection plate hurriedly.
Some of my readers may have seen me
produce a box of matches from a mans beard
when he comes on the stage. I usually ask the
man beforehand if he is a smoker ; and then when
I have found that he is, I tell him not to carry
his matches about in that absurd way. Often
and often those matches are claimed by the man
who comes on the stage. They just say at the
end of the trick: My matches, I think ?
thanks, and put the box in their pocket. On
one occasion a man told me that the matches
were his own, and I ventured to suggest that he
had made a little mistake, and that they were my
matches. He said that he was absolutely certain
they were his own ; and a man from the back of
the hall shouted: Give the man his matches
back. I, however, persisted in asking him
whether the matches were just the ordinary plain
wax matches ; and the man, who by this time was

38

Woes of a Wizard

getting a little uncomfortable, said that they

were. I then picked up the box of matches by
the little piece of tape by which you generally
pull the inside of the box out, and handed the box
to the man. He snatched at it gratefully, and
there was a loud report. That box of matches
had exploded, as I had intended it should ; and
the man admitted that after all he had made a
mistake.

CHAPTER IV
PISTOL STORIES

I have caused more commotion

I SUPPOSE
by doing tricks with pistols than I have

with any other kind of apparatus. One of my

earliest mistakes was made with a pistol. It
happened at a performance given in a small
hall for a charity. In the middle of the enter
tainment I suddenly remembered that I had no
charge for my pistol. It was obviously impossible
for me to go through the trick without producing
that wonderful effect caused by firing a pistol,
and so I sent out for some gun-powder. My
messenger was a very good boy. I had told
him not to come back without some gun-powder,
and he assured me that he would not. He
certainly did bring some gun-powder, but I
did not discover until it was too late that it
was the wrong kind of gun-powder. It was
of the kind usually called, I believe, blasting
powder.
In the course of my trick I had to fire the
39

40

Woes of a Wizard

pistol at some ones head. I had previously

assured all the nervous ladies in the audience
that no ill effects would follow. 1 had as my
assistant a very good-natured Sunday School
superintendent. Possibly you may not know
what blasting powder is. I confess that
I did not know of it until that night ; but I found
out all about it pretty quickly then, and so did
the Sunday School superintendent. No sooner
had I fired the pistol than he gave a yell of pain,
put his hand to his face, and shouted out that
he was shot. The audience thought that it was
all part of my performance, and they drowned
his cries of pain with shouts of laughter. No
one laughed more loudly than the vicar himself.
The more the unfortunate man howled, the
louder the people roared with laughter; and
it was not until they saw me examining the
poor mans face that they began to realise that
something had gone wrong.
Luckily for me it was not anything very serious.
The powder had simply peppered into his skin ;
and though the pain must have been excruciating,
the man was not seriously injured. The vicar
stopped the performance, and I felt that my
reputationlike the mans facehad been blasted.
I remember that the injured man had a young
son who insisted on looking on the bright side
of things. This boy came up to the company

Pistol Stories

41

several times in the course of the evening and

said cheerfully :
Hes got some more out, and he thinks
his face will heal up by next Christmas, if hes
careful.
For some weeks afterwards I was not in great
request as a conjurer. Nervous ladies seemed
to have a prejudice against coming to my
entertainments, and finally I had to resort to
a little strategy to get them into the place.
Not only did I advertise that there would be
no pistols or fire-arms used in the course of the
performance, and that nothing would happen
which could give any offence, physical, intellectual,
or moral, to any member of the audience, but
I also held out a tempting bait to anyone who
would come and see me. I had large bills
printedby myselfwhich set out that I was
prepared to offer a reward of 1,000 to anyone
who did not find the doors open at half-past
seven.
I suppose I ought to have taken that mishap
with the pistol to heart, and have made a solemn
resolution that never again would I use a pistol
in the course of my performance. Unfortunately,
I did not do so. Many years after I had peppered
the good school superintendent with powder, I was
going to a very nice house in Mayfair to give a
performance. I decided that I would use a new

42

Woes of a Wizard

pistol trick which I had just invented. I had the

pistol with me, and everything else necessary for
the trick.
When I arrived at the house I was shown into a
very nice drawing-room, and was told that I could
have the place entirely to myself for half an hour.
I made all my preparations, and laid the pistol I
was going to use on a side-table. Then I went
out into the hall and asked a servant to get me
a duster. I particularly did not want anyone to
go into the room just then. I had some little
difficulty in finding the servant or a bell ; but at
last I got my duster, and then, just as I was
going back to the room, I heard a loud report
followed by a shriek.
I rushed into the drawing-room and found
there the young son of the housea youth about
eighteen. He was very excited, and the moment
he saw me he asked me what I meant by leaving
a loaded revolver about. It seems that he had
sneaked into the room, picked the revolver up,
and [lulled the trigger. I am not going to say
what the revolver was loaded with ; but when
they came to see what damage had been done,
they found that one of the curtains had been nicely
perforated, a window had been broken, and the
window sash splintered.
By this time the whole household were in the
room, and every one was talking and arguing at

Pistol Stories

43

once. The young man who had fired the re

volver maintained that I ought not to have left
a loaded revolver about. I naturally replied that
he had no business in the room, and had no right
to touch what did not belong to him. I am
thankful to say that the young man's father
agreed with me ; and that what looked like a very
unfortunate accident ended quite happily. The
real performance was entirely a success ; but I
was particularly asked to omit the pistol trick.
I was once compelled to conjure for my life.
An excitable Frenchman called at the stage door
of a hall at which I was performing, and sent in
his card to me. When I saw him I recognised
in himwellperhaps that part of the storyhad better not be told ; but anyhow he was a
dangerous character, and a man to be avoided.
We quarrelled ; at least, he quarrelled with me,
and then challenged me to a duel. To his great
surprise I accepted his challenge eagerly, and we
met outside the town the following morning.
The news had spread pretty quickly and a large
number of people were at the wood before us.
When the Frenchman came to load his pistol he
found that the cartridges had been forgotten.
In despair his second came to my second and
begged me to oblige them with a few cartridges.
I replied that it seemed rather hard lines that I
should have to bring cartridges there in order

44

Woes of a Wizard

that they might be fired at myself; but, still, rather

than baulk the Frenchman of his desire to obtain
what he called satisfaction, I said he could have
the cartridges. His second selected those he
wanted and took them away.
The signal was given to us to fire, and
precisely at the same moment I staggered back
and fell full length on the soft turf.
I am not certain how long I lay there, but
when I got up two policemen were standing near
my opponent, and I was told that he would be
charged with maliciously wounding me. I was
also given to understand that a charge would
be made out against me. I am not absolutely
certain what the charge was going to be, but
I remember that there was something about
grievous bodily harm in it.
It was not until I assured the good policemen
that I could not have been hit, because the box
from which the Frenchmans second had taken
the cartridges was not the box from which he
thought he had taken them, that the unfortunate
man was allowed to go.
You may say that this is an utterly impossible
story, and that I could not possibly have
performed conjuring tricks with cartridges while
I was in danger of being shot down myself. To
this I reply first, that I knew I was in no
danger of being shot down, and secondly, that I

Pistol Stories

45

do not pretend that the duel was a real duel. It

was a very nice little piece of advertising business,
worked in connection with a company to which
I belonged many years ago ; and it did us a lot
of good. I daresay if you went to the place now,
and reminded some of the inhabitants of the
duel that was fought in the wood, they would
remember it.
Now I come to think of some of those early
days, I hardly know how to stop writing. I have
performed at queer places, and at strange times.
Sometimes our little company would go to a
market-town, and would perform there as long
as we could get an audience. Then we would
drive off to the neighbouring villages to give our
entertainment at the various schoolrooms. The
difficulty always then was to get enough chairs.
Our manager was a very energetic man, and
directly he got to the village schoolroom he
would get hold of a few big boys and would say
to them :
Look here, my boys, if you want to come
and see our show for nothing, you get us a
few chairs.
About one hour afterwards you could see the
landscape absolutely dotted with chairs, all coming
towards the schoolroom. We used to get more
chairs than we wanted ; and peoples nice arm
chairs and couches used to have to stay outside

46

Woes of a Wizard

the schoolroom until the performance was over,

and we could induce boys to take them back to
their proper owners. Then, of course, there
was the difficulty of the piano. We could not
cart a piano about with us on these occasions,
and so we had to go to the nearest house to the
schoolroomwhich was generally the Vicarage
and rap at the door and say :
Good-morning. We are members of the
company that is going to perform in your school
room. Will you kindly oblige us by lending
us your piano?
The request may seem rather cool ; in fact,
I dont know that I ought not to have included
this reminiscence in the chapter called Queer
Requests. But the odd part of it was that
these country clergymen used to get so in
terested in our entertainment that they cheer
fully and willingly lent us anything. I have
even borrowed new laid eggs to conjure with,
and have forgotten to give them back again. At
such times our company was very small, and
the duty of the manager was to manage, to see
people in the seats, arrange for the whole of
the lights, sell the tickets, and keep the money.
One manager we had did everything very well;
in fact, he kept the money too wellso well
that we never got any of it at all, and had to
tramp back to our head-quarters.

Pistol Stories

47

It is possible that some reader may be

wondering why these reminiscences are included
in a chapter entitled Pistol Stories. I think
I was reminded of them because I remembered
that on one night a certain manager that we
had left rather punctually at the end of the
performance, in fact, too punctually-----------To be
perfectly accurate, he left half-an-hour before the
performance was over, and we set out to catch
him. It was a fine night ; we saw him in the
distance and we gave chase. He ran hard and
then took refuge in a wood.
We plunged into the wood after him ; and
while I was groping through some bushes, I
must have run against a spring-gunI mean
one of those guns which the unsuspecting poacher
unwillingly fires as an alarm to the keeper. You
can easily fire one by catching your foot in a
piece of thin string which the keeper stretches
across the path. The fugitive manager heard
the pistol shot, thought we were getting very
desperate, and stopped. We were exceedingly
surprised at catching him so easily, and he went
on his knees and begged for mercy. We told
him that if he would be very good we would
graciously permit him to escape with his life ;
and then we led him back to the village school
room, and the villagers came out and jeered at
him.

48

Woes of a Wizard

As we were driving home we took upon our

selves to lecture that manager upon the sin of
trying to run away when you may be sure you
are going to be caught. He replied that he
thought we had been going a bit too far in
firing on him ; and that, after all, if we had
hit him we should probably have been very
sorry for it afterwards. Then we told him that
we had not fired at him, and had never had any
intention of firing at him, and that we did not
even possess any fire-arms.
This being a book for the home, I cannot
reproduce what that manager said when he found
that the pistol that had been fired was not our
pistol, and was, in fact, not a pistol at all.

CHAPTER V

DEADHEADS

BELIEVE I have come across every type

of deadhead, from the man who says that
he is the country representative of the Times,
and who is afterwards found to be connected
with a " We-move-with-the-Times local stores,
to the man who says that he is dying of con
sumption, and that if he sees me do the big
flag trickwhich some of his friends have told
him abouthe thinks that it will do him good,
He would also like a ticket for his sister, because
it is not safe for him to be out alone. You
know that sister? Yes, and so do I.
Perhaps the champion deadhead of all (now
dont be frightened, Im not going to give your
name away) is a man who called on me a year
or two ago. (If he reads this he will see that I
have exaggerated a little there.) This gentleman
asked for seven seats for the performance of
Maskelyne and Cookes Mysteries. I suggested
to him, as nicely as I could, that, if he could give
49

50

Woes of a Wizard

me some good reason why he should have the

seats, I might perhaps be able to comply with
his demand. I had then been staying in the
town for four weeks.
In reply to my request this man, who, by
the way, was a clergyman, said that he was
very poor, that he had a large family, and that
everyone was very kind to him by helping him
in every possible way. He then stepped outside
and beckoned to some one to come in. In walked
a girl of about seventeen, who was introduced
as my daughter. I was about to tell the
young ladys father that I would think about
giving him the seats he had asked for, when
he stepped outside again and called in a boy
of fifteen. He continued to produce children
in this mysterious way, and when the whole six
were in front of me, he said :
There you are, Mr. Devant. Those are my
children, and they all want to come and see your
show. They are all very talkative children ; Im
sure you can't hear yourself speak sometimes
in our house for the noise those children make.
They are always chattering. The eldest takes
after her dear mother ; in fact, they all do.
I told him that I considered that happy state
of things was highly satisfactory ; but the dear,
silly old man did not see that I had implied that
it was a good thing that the children had not

Deadheads

51

taken after him. I was about to add some other

little pleasantry of this sort when he interrupted
me and said :
Now you see, Mr. Devant, the children are
so talkative that if you give us all seats for your
performance tor Saturday afternoon, they will
talk so much about it that you will get a splendid
advertisement for nothing.
This happened on the Thursday. I pointed
out to the parson that I was leaving the town
after Saturday night, and so I did not quite see
what benefit I should derive from anything his
children might say about me on Saturday
afternoon.
But another year, Mr. Devant, said the
cheery old man ; another yearyou will come
another year, of course ? We have heard what a
splendid entertainment you give, and everyone
will want to come another year.
I asked him if he really thought that, and he
said that he was quite certain that the whole
neighbourhood would come another year. I
replied that in that case any advertisement that
his children could give me by talking about me
was quite unnecessary, because if the whole
neighbourhood came to see the show another
year the hall would not be large enough. That
seemed to checkmate him for a time and there
was a lull in the conversation, during which the

52

Woes of a Wizard

children regarded me in an ashamed sort of way,

as though I had been playing practical jokes on
their venerable father. The old manhe was
not really old, but he looked oldreturned to the
attack. He put aside the immense advantage
he was going to confer on me, by using seven
of my best seats for nothing, and adopted the
usual begging tactics, He was a poor man, and
the children were just home from school, and
they would so much enjoy it, etc., etc. I re
lented, and gave him a pass for the six children
and himself. While we had been talking the
people had begun to arrive at the early doors
for the evening performance. I am glad to say
that there was rather a rush that night. He
smiled fatuously at me for a few moments, and
then whispered confidentially :
Do you know, Mr. Devant, we heard you
were here through your advertisements in the
papers and on the hoardings.
I do not know whether the old man thought
that that information would be comforting to me ;
but when I told him that we usually expected
a few people to see the advertisements, he
said;
`Indeed! I always thought that you put the
advertisement in the papers, and then they sent
a reporter and gave you a paragraph in the paper
on the following week. I once arranged a bazaar,

Deadheads

53

quite a large affair. Mr. Trillingham, our local

Member of Parliamentyou may have heard of
him in Londonwas going to open the bazaar,
but at the last moment was prevented. The
editor of our local paper said that if he had been
there the affair would have been of some public
interest; but as he was not there he could only
insert the report of the bazaar if we paid for it
as an advertisement, or if we gave an advertise
ment beforehand. My wife opened the bazaar,
and my eldest son there did some conjuring tricks
which were a great success, and--------
The eldest son interrupted his father to assure
me that they were only a very few tricks, and very
simple ones ; and that he was quite sure he did
them very badly, although he added hastily that
he was equally sure no one had seen through
them.
The champion deadhead told his son and me
that his son did the tricks very well indeed ;
although, of course, he added, lest I should be
offended, and withdraw those free passes, he
was nothing like so good as you, Mr. Devant
he wasnt really.
Seeing the people going into the hall the
champion deadhead rubbed his hands together
and said that he was glad I was going to have
such a good audience. I thanked him, and then
he said :

54

Woes of a Wizard

I suppose you have a few seats vacant, eh,

Mr. Devant ? You won't fill up every one, will
you?``
I told him that it was quite possible, and
even probable, that the people in that town
would be so backward in appreciating that which
had been provided for their intellectual enter
tainment, that they would not entirely fill the
hall.
Then, said the champion deadhead, perhaps
you would not mind some of us going in now
and seeing it. Then we can go home and tell
the others what a treat they have in store for
them, and they will know what is coming and be
able to enjoy it all so much more on Saturday
afternoon, than they would if it was all new to
them then.
I hesitated, not because I was thinking of
letting him have two lots of free seats, but be
cause I could not make up a suitable reply on
the spur of the moment. Noticing my hesitation
the old man pointed out that they were all there,
ready to go in. Youve had your tea," he
asked in an aside to one of them. The boy
referred to said that he had not had his tea, but
he would not mind that.
Thats right, my boy," said the father en
couragingly. You see, Mr. Devant, how eager
they are to come and see you. The boy is even

Deadheads

55

willing to go without his tea, and I know hes

hungry. He always is ; all my children always
are.
During the latter part of the conversation my
manager had come into the room. He is a very
obliging man. When he heard that feeling re
ference to the tea that the boy had not had, he
turned to me and suggested that perhaps one of
the programme boys was available. Should he
send one of the boys out to get some tea ?
Perhaps the gentleman, and the young ladies and
gentlemen, would not mind occupying my private
room at the hall, until the cloth had been laid in
another and a larger room where there was a
large fire ? This was all said so absolutely
seriously that the champion deadhead thought my
manager really meant what he was saying. Not
wishing to hurt the old mans feelings I turned
to my manager and, under pretence of asking him
about some business matter, gave him a wink to
shut up. I regret to say that my manager was
rebellious that evening. When the champion
deadhead protested that he did not want me to
send out for any tea (I had never had the slightest
intention of doing anything of the kind), my
manager turned to me and said without so much
as blinking ;
A little lemonade and some biscuits, perhaps ?
A little whiskey and soda, or--------

56

Woes of a Wizard

The eyes of the champion deadhead sparkled,

but he said, rather feebly as I thought :
No, thank you ; really, no, thank you. My
children can wait quite well till they get home.
They wont be much more hungry than they
generally are, and Ive no doubt there is a nice
supper waiting for them.
He said this in a way that suggested that in
all probability the supper would have faded away
before the children got back to it. The children
seemed to have the same idea, for they smiled
feebly, and I thought I heard a whisper of
bread and dripping.
Having disposed of my manager-he was on
the point of suggesting that the hall-keepers wife
was a very good cook, and if a steak and potatoes
would be acceptable he thought they could be
managed without the slightest difficultyI turned
to the old man and told him that I could not
possibly give him seats for that night's perform
ance. He might keep his seven free passes for
the Saturday afternoon ; but if he thought that
his children would not enjoy the performance at
the first sight of it, then he had better not bring
them. He hastily assured me that it was not
that at all. He had only been thinking that
there might be some empty seats at the evenings
performance then coming on ; and he had thought
that it would be so much nicer for me to have

Deadheads

57

the place full. He added slyly that his children

were very strong in the arms, and that when they
clapped their handswell, you should have
heard them at our bazaar, he added, when I
recited `Half a league, half a league, half a
league onward.' We always say that they make
an audience in themselves.
I said nothing; and in the course of a few
minutes he rose to go. As he was leaving he
remarked that there did not appear to be so
many people coming in just then ; but as I did
not respond to the hint, he turned to one of the
younger children and said :
Never mind, Tommy, my boy; we can't
come to-night, but well all make up for it on
Saturday afternoon. We cant come in to-night
not to-night. . .``
He kept on repeating not to-night" in a way
that made me feel that I was some stern parent
dealing with a large family of my own, and that
the old man was my eldest son. I kept up to
the character by not changing my mind. My
manager told me afterwards that they stood a
long time outside the hall and watched the late
comers arrive. I rather fancy that the old man
was making calculations as to the number of
seats that were probably vacant.
They all turned up on the Saturday afternoon.
The free pass was duly presented and nine

58

Woes of a Wizard

people passed in. My check-taker stopped them

and said that the pass admitted only seven. The
champion deadhead retorted that he knew Mr.
Devant, and that he was quite sure that there
would be no objection to nine coming in. I was
sent for, and when he saw me the old man
grasped my hand and said :
So glad to see you again. You see weve
come. It has been a long journey; you see we
cannot afford the train both ways (I looked round
in fear lest my manager should overhear him, and
should suggest that he would send for a cab for
the return journey). Ive brought my dear
wife with me; I felt sure that you would not
mind. I did not ask for a ticket for her because
I thought you would take it for granted that I
should bring her. And then we thought it was
such hard lines on our dear old nurse to leave
her at home. She gets out very little, and
seldom goes to an entertainment of any kind, so
shes sure to enjoy yours. (I bowed my acknow
ledgments of that compliment.) She is shortly
going to leave us ; you see they are practically
all grown up now, and so the dear old nurse is
going away to South Africa. I've told her to be
sure and talk a great deal about you and your
entertainment to all the people on board ship on
the way out, and to all the people she meets in
Cape Town and other places wherever she may

Deadheads

59

be ; and you will talk about Mr. Devant, and his

wonderful performance, wont you, nursie ?
The nurse replied that if she did not know
how to talk when she was told, then what was
the good of her being a nurse ? I do not
pretend to follow that argument, but perhaps
some of my readers who understand nurses can
tell me what the dear old soul meant.
Of course they asked for programmes, and
when the programme boy suggested that the
present of a seat did not include a programme,
they told him that he was very impudent, and
that they were all friends of mine, and were going
to talk about the performance to other people.
My manager came to the rescue and gave them
the programmes. He expressed his regret that
there were no books of the words, but said
that he would ask me to speak very slowly, so
that if anyone liked to write my patter down
they could do so, and perhaps it would come in
useful at the next bazaar. The parson thanked
my manager effusively, and said that it was re
freshing to find a man so kind and generous
and obliging.
Later on in the afternoon, during the interval,
the parson beckoned my manager towards him
and said in a whisper :
You were kind enough on Thursday evening
to suggest that someerrefreshments of

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Woes of a Wizard

ersome kind might be provided. Would it

be troubling you too much to let me have just
one bun for my little boy? Its getting near
his tea-time and hes so hungry, and if we go
out and get something Im afraid we shall miss
the next thing. It would be so very kind of
you, if you would.
The fond mother added a request that the
bun might have no currants in it, as Tommy
never could digest currants. Her husband
whispered that that did not matter, at which
his wife became rather cross and said that it
did matter very considerably, and she supposed
that if the poor child was sick it would matter
very much.
My manager came and asked me what to do,
and I told him that, as he had brought all the
trouble on himself, he could go out and buy the
boy a bun and put it down to me.
When 1 went on to the stage to show my
experiments in sleight-of-hand, I made the usual
request that a member of the audience would
come forward and act as my assistant. The
parson and his wife and the six children and
the nurse all rose in a body. 1 know that they
meant to be kind, and that it was merely their
way of showing that they were grateful for the
free seats; but the remainder of the audience
did not see the matter quite in that light. They

Deadheads

61

thought that the nine people were confederates

of mine, and I had some little difficulty in con
vincing them that the family were not members
of my company.
At the conclusion of the performance the
champion deadhead came to thank me for having
given him and his family a very enjoyable
evening.
And now, he said, laying his hand on my
shoulder and looking up into my face, I want
you to promise me one thing. I want you to
be sure and let me know well beforehand next
year when you are coming. Then, you see,
we shall be able to come on the first night and
go away and talk about it, and that will do you
such a lot of good ; and if you change the pro
gramme after the first fortnight we shall be able
to come againtwice in the monthand that
will do you all the more good."
I do not know, even now, quite how he managed
to do it, but that man left me with the impression
that he had really come to see the performance
solely with the desire to confer a favour on
me ; and I had a kind of vague idea that I was
indebted to him for having accepted nine free
passes. He was a wonderful man, and I am
rather looking forward to meeting him again
on my next tour. I am a little curious to see
in what way he will extend his requests to me,

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Woes of a Wizard

for I do not quite understand how he can im

prove on his first effort, unless he asks to be
allowed to bring his wifes relations.
Beside the champion deadhead all others are
comparatively modest in their demands. Occa
sionally I am asked for a couple of seats for a
man who has found outso he sayshow all
the tricks and illusions are done ; but if I give
him two seats I can rely on his keeping his
mouth shut. When I get a note of this kind
I generally send out word that if the bearer
will wait a moment I will come and see him.
I then let him wait until the cheaper seats have
all been sold, and the people are in their places,
and then I tell the man that if it is a case of
his paying for a seat, or seats,or telling every
body all my secrets, I should prefer him to adopt
the latter course. He usually retorts that he
did not mean it quite like that, and he would
be very much obliged for a couple of seats. I
consider that I am then within my rights in
telling him that the free list has been entirely
suspended, and in referring him to the boxoffice.
There is another kind of deadhead which I
used to meet pretty frequently when I was on
tour, but which, I am happy to say, is now
getting rather scarce. This deadhead never
comes to ask for seats. His method of getting

Deadheads

63

or rather trying to geta free entertainment,

is as follows :
First of all he stops me in the streetI
should add that this kind of deadhead only grows
in the smaller townsand calling me by name
he says that he cannot help stopping me as
some of his friends have so much enjoyed my
show, and he hopes it is doing well. After a
few moments he blurts out an invitation to me
to come to supper, one evening after my
show. He adds that his wife and children were
so interested in seeing the performance that
they very much want to have the pleasure of
shaking me by the hand. At this I blush and
look confusedat least I used to, but I know
better nowand murmur something about being
delighted. Then this deadhead goes on to
apologize for the homeliness of his household.
He says that he hopes I wont mind taking them
as they are, without any ceremony.
When I get to the house I usually find that
I am expected not only by my host and hostess,
but by a large circle of friends. Everyone is
in evening dress, and it is evident that they
have been having a very good time generally.
We have a nice little supper, and then in the
drawing-room afterwards, someone begins to talk
about conjuring. In all probability a youth will
assert that such and such a trick cannot be done

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Woes of a Wizard

and his father tells him that he knows nothing

about it, and refers to me. I never take the
slightest trouble to conceal the fact that I hate
talking shop after shop hours.
But these good people do not allow me to
forget my work very long. After a time the
conversation veers round again to conjuring, and
then perhaps some one remarks upon one of my
tricks, and the host or hostess adds a very broad
hint for me to explain the mystery. Then perhaps
someone asks me if I do not get tired of doing
the same thing over and over again ; and when
I have fenced with that question the host will
probably put it point blank to me: Will I, to
oblige him, just do that trick they saw me do
at the hall, over again ?
Before I have had time to reply, the hostess
has beckoned to all her guests, and has told them
that the conjuring is going to begin at last.
Everyone rushes for a chair ; the man who was
just going to start a recitation looks daggers
at me; the host murmurs that its really too
kind of me, and the younger sons of the family
affectionately puli my coat-tails. And then I
tell them quietly, politely, hut very firmly that,
having performed at the hall, I am very much
too tired to perform again before them.
The host, being a very good deadhead, is
not to he beaten by this. He calmly

Deadheads

65

suggests that perhaps on another evening I

might be able to oblige him. At the same
moment I remember that I am engaged for every
evening that I am spending in their town. The
rest of the party passes off rather quietly, and
the host is not quite so eager to show me those
little courtesies that a guest expects.
I think that this kind of deadhead is even
Worse than the kind that goes to the box office
and demands seats on false pretences. I used
to be caught regularly by these home-loving
deadheads, who like to have the show entirely
private, and without paying for it ; but now I
do not respond eagerly to that kind of invitation,
unless I happen to be wanting an evenings
amusement all to myself.
Before closing this chapter I should like to
correct an impression that seems to be rather
general in the provinces. Many of the great
British public, especially in the smaller towns,
regard representatives of the Press as deadheads.
I should like to addthough it seems hardly
necessary to do sothat I do not share in
that opinion. So many people in a small country
town are rather jealous of the representatives
of the Press, because pressmen always receive
invitations. I have reason to believe that these
invitations are not altogether unacceptable
because, whenever we are in a town for any
5

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Woes of a Wizard

length of time, the local papers have free passes

for the whole of that time. These free passes
are invariably used every night of our stay.
If, as I may be pardoned for thinking, the
editors, Press representatives, and their friends,
like coming to our show, I am very pleased
to see them, I have never forgotten that I
owe a debt of gratitude to the Press, because
it was entirely owing to a little paragraph about
me in one paper that I was first brought to
the notice of a really good manager.

CHAPTER VI
THE LADY WHO WOULD NOT VANISH

F people who arrange bazaars and other

entertainments for charities were to come
to me and ask me how to make their enterprises
profitable, I should answer : Get a young and
enthusiastic amateur conjurer ; make a side show
of him ; let him perform frequently during the
afternoon and evening, and charge sixpence
admission. The young and enthusiastic amateur
conjurer will fill the hall with his friends, and
all will be well with that bazaar, I know,
because I first appeared in public at a bazaar.
It came about in this way. After the Great
Court Conjurer had told me to buy and to study
Modern Magic, I saved money carefully until
I had acquired the book. Then I practised
hard.
One day I saw a bill announcing a bazaar at
which a conjurer was to perform. It was not
my fault that I arrived too late to see the
conjuring ; but I was in time to speak with
67

68

Woes of a Wizard

the conjurer. He seemed rather tired, and

several people were sitting round and badgering
him with questions.
I said, Good-evening, Professor,`` without
waiting for an introduction ; and informed him
with much cheerfulness that I knew all about
conjuring, and I could palm.
Yes? said the Professor wearily.
Yes," I replied, a happy smile illuminating
my young and silly face. With that I attempted
to palm a halfpenny. It dropped with a horrible
clatter on the floor.
You want a little more practice, said the
Professor. He seemed much more tired than
when I first spoke to him.
I slunk away ; but when I reached my house
I took that halfpenny out again and practised
for many hours.
About three weeks afterwards another bazaar
was being held in the neighbourhood. I went
to the secretary, and, with the confidence of
youth, offered my services as a conjurer. They
were accepted so readily that I felt bound to
explain that I had had very little experience.
Oh, that's all right, said the secretary ; the
fact is Professor ` A-------- was scorning. But Ive
just heard from him that hes ill, and wont be
able to appear, Hes an awfully good sort, and
will lend you anything you want, and give you

The Lady Who would not Vanish

69

any assistance in his powerIm sure. Go to

him and say I sent you.
Now Professor `A-------- was the very conjurer
who had seen me, but three weeks before, bungling
with a halfpenny! I therefore felt some mis
givings in going to him ; but from the happy
smile that came over his face when I told him
that I was going to conjure in public, I concluded
that my performance would at least be amusing.
However, when he saw that I was deadly in
earnestand I had learnt a great deal during the
three weekshe was very kind, and helped me
to make my performance a success. On the day
of the bazaar I caused all my relations and friends
to be present in large numbers. My happiness
was not perfect, because I could not be sure
whether the secretarys great glee was due to the
brilliancy of my performance, or to the fact that
I had made about thirty people pay for admission
two or three times during the day. At the close
of the bazaar he congratulated me on the ex
cellent attendances I had secured, and I was
equally uncertain as to whether he wished to
compliment me on my conjuring, or on my ability
as an agent in advance.
To my great joy I discovered, during the day,
that Professor Hoffmann had been present at one
of my performances, and I had heard that he had
said I should make a conjurer one day. At this

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Woes of a Wizard

I became very excited and went to look for

Professor Hoffmann. On his telling me that the
opinion he had expressed was quite genuine, I
lost all control over myself, and shouted :
And its all through your book !all through
your book !
With this I slapped him on the backa most
rude thing to do; but I could not help it. I
was so glad that I had to do something. Un
fortunately I slapped his back so hard that his
gold spectacles fell off and broke. It was an
unfortunate incident.
Overjoyed by my success at the bazaar I set
about securing other engagements. As I charged
nothing for my services, paid my own expenses,
and provided all the necessary apparatus, I had
not much difficulty in finding opportunities for
showing myself off. My only trouble came from
a printer who, on two occasions, printed my name
as Davant on some bills announcing a bazaar.
I pointed out to him that he had done me an
irreparable injury.
When people see Davant on the pro
grammes, I said, they will think that he is an
impostoran imitator of Devant. This was
just before my fourth appearance in public. The
printer smiled and said that people would know
there was no other conjurer like me. I believe
he was right; for I have never met a conjurer

The Lady Who would not Vanish

71

with tricks so simple and amateurish as those

that I first exhibited to a patient public. I
worked hard though, and in due course I yearned
to do the Vanishing Lady Trick.
Being an amateur and a beginner, I scorned to
use apparatus similar to that usually employed by
conjurers when performing this trick. I invented
apparatus of my own, and then thought out a new
way of presenting the trick.
To do the trick I required two ladies closeiy
resembling each other, and I spent many weary
weeks in trying to discover two such ladies.
Sometimes I would come across two sisters
nearly alike ; but one would be fair and the other
dark. Then I would go so far as to suggest to the
dark one that there was an indescribable charm
about golden hair, that appealed to ninety-nine
men out of every hundred. The dark one would
take neither hints nor hair dyes. Then I would
go to the fair one and murmur something nice
about the grandeur of fine, dark women, and how
curious it was that the great majority of married
women were dark. I dont mean to say that I
put it quite so brutally as this ; but that was what
my conversation amounted to. But I did it once
too often. I had urged a dark lady to make
herself fair, and on her refusing to do so I had
urged her fair sister to make herself darkfor
reasons already statedand she had refused.

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Woes of a Wizard

Then they told each other what I had said. I

did the vanishing trick very quickly thenwith
an impudent youth, by name David Devant.
I began to think that my efforts to do the
Vanishing Lady Trick would never be successful
when one day I came across the two ladies I
wanted. They were dressed alike, their faces
were very much alike, and they were of the same
height. I was so struck with their appearance
that I followed themdiscreetlyand eventually
saw them go into a dressmakers shop. The
next thing was to get an introduction to the
ladies. But how ? I could find no one who
knew them. In order not to lose sight of them I
met them regularly every morning as they were
going to business, and I hopedoh, how I
hoped !that one of them would be attacked by
a dog, or nearly run over by a bus, so that I
might then rescue her and earn her lasting
gratitude, and engage her for my Vanishing
Lady Trick, till at the same time. A friend, to
whom I had confided my hopes, offered to bring
his dog one morning, and to make him bark
savagely just as the two young ladies turned the
corner.
I had almost decided to close with this offer;
but another friend, who, I afterwards found,
had been bitten by the aforesaid dog, told me
that if I attempted any rescue work when that

The Lady Who would not Vanish

73

dog was on the scene, one of two things would

inevitably happen. Either I should be bitten
badly myself, or one of the two ladies would be
bitten in such a way that her likeness to her
friend would be effectually and permanently
destroyed. Either way, I should still be unable
to do my Vanishing Lady Trick ; so I had to
think of a simpler plan of obtaining the intro
duction I needed.
At last there came a time when I could wait
no longer. All the apparatus was ready, and I
was determined that I would do the Vanishing
Lady Trick that week. My plan was quite
simple. Not being able to get an introduction
in the usual way, I resolved to introduce myself.
I therefore walked up to the two ladies, raised
my hat, and said very politely :
Pardon meergood morning. Would you
mind being vanishing ladies ?
(I dont suppose any one will believe it, but
this is absolutely and entirely true.)
I cannot describe properly what happened
next. The two ladies jumped on one side, and
were evidently going to run away. I therefore
assured them hurriedly that it was for a trick,
and they would be paid. I had selected them
because of their charming presence, and I re
gretted not having been introduced.
Slowly it dawned on the two ladies that I was

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Woes of a Wizard

not insane ; and when they had realised that my

proposal was strictly of a business nature, they
became quite communicative. Eventually they
agreed to perform with me on the condition that
they might both take a part in the trick. As
this was exactly what I wanted we soon made
a happy little party.
But my troubles were by no means at an end.
I discovered that the two ladies thought that
twoor at the most threerehearsals would be
quite sufficient; and I did not rid them of this
idea without many arguments and entreaties
and threats, and much persuasion.
The trick was successfulin fact, it was too
good. No other amateur conjurer in our neigh
bourhood did the Vanishing Lady Trick, and so
I was in great request. Unfortunately, people
would come round to the stage doors of the
halls at which I performed on purpose to see
the Vanishing Lady and myself enter and depart.
I had not bargained for this attention. In order
to preserve the secret of the trick it was
absolutely necessary that only one Vanishing
Lady should be seen in public with me.
The puzzle then was how to smuggle one lady
in behind the scenes, some time before the
commencement of the performance, so that the
Vanishing Lady and I might enter the stage
door together. The lady who had to get into

The Lady Who would not Vanish

75

the hall by secret ways objected to that part

of her work. She had discovered her importance,
and she wanted it to be known that she was
the Real Vanishing Lady.
My difficulties were considerably increased, at
times, by my own friends. They would come
to the performance, and then send messages to
me, asking for an introduction to the Vanishing
Lady; and did I think I could induce her to
come with me to their house to supper ? I
dreaded having those messages. The outcome
of them always was that I had to decide which
of the two Vanishing Ladies I should take
with me. As to my being able to induce
the Vanishing Lady to come to supper, the
trouble always was to induce her to stay away,
and go home quietly. Sometimes we would be
asked to dances together; then my troubles
would be greater than usual, for a dance was
naturally more attractive than a supper. Finally
I had to make an agreement, that if one Vanish
ing Lady went to a dance the other Vanishing
Lady should go to two supperson two different
evenings of course.
My method of presenting this trick was ex
tremely simple. The Vanishing Lady would
walk from the stage down into the hall, in order
that the audience might see that she was not
an automaton. Then she would return to the

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Woes of a Wizard

stage and sit down on a small cane chair placed

on an ordinary kitchen-table. I would cover
her for a moment with a cloth, pull it off quickly,
and she would be gone. After that, I usually
said :
Where are you ? Where are you ?
The Vanishing Lady then appeared in the
gallery, and exclaimed :
I am herein the gallery.
One night something went wrong. I pulled
the cloth off and the Vanishing Lady had not
vanished ! At the same time, the other Vanish
ing Lady in the gallery went on with her part
of the performance, and sung out in a small
squeaky voice, which I shall never forget
I am herein the gallery.
Then the curtain was dropped, and the band
kindly began to play. I discovered afterwards
that the mishap was not due to any fault in the
mechanism of my apparatus. The lady that
ought to have vanished was cross, because the
other vanishing lady had eaten the greater part
of a box of their chocolates that had been sent
round to the dressing-room by an unknown
admirer. Neither of them ever knew which
one was the Vanishing Lady, and so they used
to squabble about the presents that were con
stantly being sent to that mysterious individual.
One gentleman wrote to me to say that the

The Lady Who would not Vanish

77

Vanishing Ladys beauty and charming manners

exercised a wonderful and indescribable spelt
over him. Would I introduce him ? Both
Vanishing Ladies managed to get hold of that
note, and they then argued the question as to
which of the two was beautiful and had charming
manners, I settled the matter by telling them
that they were both too charming, and I should
be much obliged if they would go and exercise
their wonderful and indescribable spell else
where.
I have often done the Vanishing Lady Trick
since, but I use only one lady in the performance.
The trick is quite as effective as it was in the old
days, and my peace of mind is assured. I am
only afraid that, at times, the trick is too realistic :
for I have frequently been asked privately, by
a male member of the audience, if I cannot vanish
some elderly and angular lady of his acquaintance
as effectually as I have vanished the lady on
the platform.
Shocking, isnt it ?

CHAPTER VII
THE MAN WHO MAKES MONEY

HIS is a real woe; and you will please

to understand that I did not have it in
my mind when the photograph which you see
on the cover of this book was taken.
It happened many years ago. One night I
was walking home after giving a performance
at a small village schoolroom. The moon was
shining brightly, and I tried to think that I
would not have had a cab if there had been
one, and that I would enjoy the walk. I was
trudging merrily along, and thinking what a
glorious supper I was going to have at the end
of my walk, when I was suddenly brought to a
standstill in the middle of the path.
A man had leaped out of the hedge and was
standing in front of me. It was at once evident
that he did not mean, to allow me to pass. I
sized him up quickly, saw that he was taller
and much more powerful that I was, and decided
that discretion would be the better part of
78

The Man Who Makes Money

79

valour in this case. For a second or two, which

seemed like hours, he did not speak ; but then
seeing me cast my eyes towards the road he
read my thoughts, and translated them instantly.
Its no use your looking at the road ; you
can't get by me.
What do you want ? I asked.
Well, he said slowly, there are a good
many things I want ; but what I want most just
now, and what Im going to have, is money. I
have had nothing to eat all day and Ive got
nowhere to sleep, and I've had no drink. Think
of that, you soft-hearted fur-coated ruffian !
Nothing to drink! Can you imagine what Ive
suffered by not having anything to drink ?
The man talked so strangely that I took
courage and looked at him in the face. The
moon shone directly into his eyes, and the bright
beams seemed reflected there. I had never seen
a man with such eyes ; they sparkled like
diamonds, and they seemed to have at the back
of them a weird phosphorescent light.
I asked the man how much money he wanted
and told himwhat was indeed the truththat
I was very poor, and had very little money
with me.
Nonsense! he screamed. Nonsense!
They all say that ; but they pay before Ive
finished with them. Then he leaned down and

8o

Woes of a Wizard

peered into my face. I felt almost hypnotised,

but as he put his face near mine I had enough
presence of mind to show no signs of being
frightened. I do not mind admitting that I
never felt more uncomfortable in my life. He
remained with his face close to mine. His
eyes were almost starting out of their sockets
as he glared maliciously at me. Suddenly he
started back, and raising his hands above his
head, burst into a fit of laughter. It was some
thing like the laughter of a hysterical woman ; the
laughter that makes you shudder. I waited for
a moment to see what could be the cause of his
merriment.
Why, he shouted; Im in luck. Youre
the man that makes money ! "
Not very much, I pleaded feebly. And
not very often.
Nonsense! he shouted. They all say
thatall of them ! They all pretend that they
havent any money; but they pay before Ive
finished with them. Youyou must have heaps
of money. Youre the man that makes money !
I told him as quietly and as firmly as I could
that I felt sure he was mistaken, and that in any
case I did not quite understand him.
Why, he screamed, do you lie like this?
I saw you making money on Monday. You
made heaps of it, and I wanted to get some,

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The Man Who Makes Money

but they would not let me have it. Dont you

remember how you made money at the big hall
in Wiltenham ?"
I stepped back quickly at the mention of that
word, for I understood, at last, exactly what the
man meant. I had performed on the Monday
of that week at Wiltenham Asylum, and one
of my tricks was catching money, invisibly, in
a hat. I realised in a moment that the man
standing in front of me, and glaring down at
my face, was an escaped lunatic. Remembering
what I had often been told by doctors at
asylumsthat one must never make a patient
excitedand realising also that I was in some
danger of being seriously injured, I began to
soothe the man as well as I could.
Oh, said I, I remember you now quite
well. I shall be most happy to oblige you;
but don't you think that if I begin to make
money here, somebody else will see us perhaps,
and then they will want some too, and there
won't be so much for you.
I was hoping that by this simple ruse I
might be able to induce the man to walk with
me along the road, and so to the next village.
He seemed to be considering the matter for
a moment, but then replied very excitedly :
No! no! no! We shant be caught here,
if you do it very quickly. Make lots of money,
6

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Woes of a Wizard

fill your hat full, and then give it to me. Look

at that bright shower of diamonds over that
tree. Cant you get some of those too ?
The moon had gone behind the cloud while
he had been speaking, and the stars shone out
brilliantly. It was to the stars that he pointed
when he asked me to get him some diamonds.
I told him that I would do my best, and I
began to take off my gloves. He was eager
for me to begin at once, and kept on calling
on me to lose no time, because some one might
come along the road and then it would be too
late. If I had had any doubt as to what I
ought to do, that doubt was dispelled when
the moon shone out again on to his face. It
was distorted with passion, and I turned away
sick with fear.
Look here, he said, begin at onceat
once ; do you hear ? Im going to sit down ; Im
tired. Ive been walking about all day and have
had nothing to eat. Begin at once and make
me lots of money, and then give it to me and
I'll go; but if you dont make plenty, and if
you dont give it to me, then, he said, with a
childish chuckle, you shall go into that nice
little round room all to yourself.
I knew that he referred to a padded cell.
Never before in my life had I conjured under
such strange conditions. The man sat on a

The Man Who Makes Money

83

stile and laughed with joy directly I began. I

suppose most people have seen the trick per
formed. The conjurer holds up a silk hat with
his left hand, catches money invisibly in the
air with his right hand, throws the money
invisibly at the hat, and it is heard to fall inside.
At any time the conjurers hands are seen to
be empty; but when he has finished, a good
pile of coins is in the hat. Every time the
man heard the chink of money, he dapped his
hands. Certainly I had never had a more
appreciative audience.
I was careful not to do the trick too quickly,
and there seemed to be no reason why I should
hurry; because directly the madman saw me
begin his manner changed. He became more
quiet ; and perhaps if any one had come along
then, they would have said that a conjurer who
could perform on a cold night, in the open air,
was more likely to be insane than the man
who was watching him. After the first few
minutes I told him that my arms were getting
a little tired, and that I should like to have a
rest for a minute or two.
Not for long, not for long. he shouted.
And very soon I had to begin again.
Wait a minute, he said. Lets see how
much youve got. I turned the hat towards
him and shook up the coins.

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Woes of a Wizard

All right, he said, you'll do. Keep on

long enough and I shall be able to get to New
York after all.
I do not know how long 1 continued to do the
invisible mint trick. It seemed to me to be
the longest performance I had ever given.
The moon was still shining brightly then, and
my audience and myself were visible two miles
away. My arms were getting very tired, and
I hardly knew how to go on. I was trying to
think how I should tell my audience that I had
not made quite so many half-crowns as he
had heard fall into the hat.
At last I thought of a way out of the difficulty.
I made up my mind that I would gather up the
coins and throw them to him ; and then, while he
was picking them up, I would run as hard as
I could down the road. I was just debating
in my mind as to when the best time would be
to do this, when, to my joy, I heard some
footsteps, and presently, in the distance, I saw
two men walking along the road. Both the
men had long sticks, and they were prodding
the bushes and hedges as they went along. I
guessed at once that they were keepersor
rather attendants, as the keepers at an asylum
like to be called. I shall never forget their
startled look of surprise when they saw me
standing on the side of the road and doing the

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85

Money Catching Trick at three oclock that

morning.
They realised at once that they had found
their man, and that they would have some little
difficulty in getting near him without being seen,
They motioned to me to continue my perform
ance, and then they retraced their steps, walked
through the hedge, and so approached my
audience from the back.
It was an exciting time for me. I had to keep
the attention of that madman fixed on what I
was doing. Had I wavered once, or shown any
sign of the anxiety I was going through, he
would have turned his head and might then have
seen his pursuers. I closed my eyes and kept
on doing the trick mechanically ; and while my
eyes were thus closed I was suddenly startled by
a yell of rage. The man before whom I had
been performing was on his back on the field,
and a pair of handcuffs, that shone like silver in
the bright moonlight, were round his wrists.
He kicked and struggled, but all to no purpose.
His legs were bound, and one of the attendants
remained with him. The other went to the
asylum, and returned in about an hour and a
half with a doctor and a conveyance. I had
been asked whether I would remain with the one
attendant while the other was away.
When the madman was safely inside the

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Woes of a Wizard

carriage with the two attendants and the doctor,

I was pressed to join them. I said that I
should prefer to ride with the driver.
I have often done that trick since then ; but I
can never do it, or think of it, without recalling the
awful face of that one man who remembered me
simply as the man who makes money.

CHAPTER VIII
SOME QUEER REQUESTS

HILDREN always ask me to do the most

strange things ; in fact, if I could do half
what the average child thinks I can do, I should
be a happy man. Often as I am leaving a
childrens party, two or three youngsters will way
lay me in the hall and one of them will beg me
to turn her into a rabbit, while another brings
me a toy horse and beseeches me to endow it
with life.
But not even children have ever asked me to
do a trick that one lady requested me to per
form at a charity entertainment. There were
about three hundred boys and girls, and I was
asked to produce three hundred threepenny pieces
and present one to each girl and boy. It was
rather a tall order, and you will see why, if you
take three hundred threepenny pieces and put
them all on the table at once. However, I
did it. I will not tell you how I did it, because
I may have to do it again ; but I don't mind
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Woes of a Wizard

letting you into this secret. I thought that the

request was so unreasonable that, instead of pass
ing the threepenny pieces round, I handed each
one separately myself. In this way at least half
an hour of my one hours entertainment slipped
by ; so the lady who engaged me really did not
get quite such good value for her money as she
had expected. Still, she was quite pleased.
On another occasion I was asked to produce
a lot of small buttonholes for each member of the
audience, and then a huge bouquet for a newly
married bride who was present. I told the lady
that I had not brought any flowers with me ; and
she said : Oh, but I thought you were a
conjurer, and could make them magically. I
believe that is one of the best testimonials I ever
had in my life.
Once, when I was quite a young man, I was
asked if I could appear at a Primrose League
meeting, and, in the course of one of my tricks,
produce a large quantity of primroses. I replied
I was very young thenthat any such little
trifle as a basket or two of primroses could be
easily manipulated by a conjurer who knew his
business.
On the night in question I had the primroses
arranged all nicely in a paper bag. First of all
I had arranged to produce a large flag with the
letters of the Lodge and P.L. in large letters

Some Queer Requests

89

underneath. I had produced this flag, and was

waving it about to terrific applause, when some
thing went wrong with the paper bag in which
my wet primroses were reposing. I struggled
hard to produce them correctly, but they insisted
on making their appearance prematurely, and
for the rest of the evening I shed primroses as
I walked about the hall.
My friends came to me and told me that it
was the best trick that I had ever done. I
assured them that I had made a mistake, and
bungled it ; but they said that it was much more
of a success than were the tricks which I did
not bungle. I may add that the flag I used
on that occasion was painted by myself. I had
stolen a large white silk handkerchief belonging
to a near relative of mine. All the colours came
out in the wash, but the letters remained there ;
and so whenever the owner of the handkerchief
wore it, he went about with P.L. on the back
of his neck.
I was once sent for by a grocer. I could not
understand what the grocer wanted to see me
about, unless it was that I owed him money.
When I got to the shop he took me mysteriously
on one side, and told me that he felt sure that
he had been swindled by a man who had come
in and rung the changes on him. I asked him
what he wanted me to do, and he said that he

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Woes of a Wizard

had heard that I was a conjurer, and he wanted

me to stay behind the counter and play tricks
on that man, when he called again. I did not
accede to his request.
Another strange request I once had, came
from a lady in reference to her son, who had
assisted me, in going on the stage, on the previous
afternoon. She said that her son and she had
enjoyed the performance very much ; but she
thought it a great pity that I had asked her
son to tell a lie about the watch. Those of you
who have seen me do my watch trick, will
know that I ask a boy to drop a watch in a
paper bag. As a matter of fact the boy does
drop the watch into the paper bag, and he can
feel that the watch is there the whole time.
I had instructed this ladys son to drop the watch
in the bag, and had asked him to say that it
was there ; I had not told a lie or asked him
to tell a lie. Therefore, in saying that the
watch was not in the bag when it was there,
and in telling his mother that I had told him
to say what was not true, that boy had lied.
Sometimes a conjurer realises that this is a
hard world.
One of the quaintest engagements I ever had,
was to appear at a pantomime played by amateur
actors and actresses. I can say, without laying
myself open to the charge of being conceited,

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91

that the performers on the stage were much

more interested in my conjuring than they were
in their own parts. I was dressed up as the
wicked magician in Aladdins Lamp, and I
performed for three quarters of an hour while
the action of the pantomime was delayed. At
the end of my performance I had as much
genuine applause from the people on the stage
as I had from the people in front, and Aladdin
himself came forward and begged me to give
him an encore.
Some little time afterwards the same company
were going to play the pantomime elsewhere;
but they did not engage me. I heard afterwards
that some of the people who went, thought they
had been defrauded of their money because I
was not there. You may think that I am very
conceited in telling you this ; but I am not. I
say it only to show how very bad the amateurs
were.
One of the most curious requests I ever had
made to me, was put by a landlady, in a small
provincial town. She knew, of course, that I
was connected with the company performing at
the Town Hall, but she had not realised until
after the first night that I was the man who
did the conjuring tricks. When I got home
that night I thought she seemed rather flurried,
especially when she brought in the supper. At

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Woes of a Wizard

last she said she hoped I would excuse her ; but

since seeing me vanish people and things she
felt rather nervous, and would I mind being very
careful with the china ornaments on the mantel
piece, because they were wedding presents?
I do not think I succeeded in making the old
lady believe that I was not going to practise
conjuring tricks with her china ornaments, for
she kept on coming into the room, in the course
of the evening, with the feeblest excuses; on
purpose, so it seemed to me, to be quite sure
that her belongings were still safe. At one
time she thought she smelt something burning.
Was the lamp quite right ? Had I rung tor
anything? Should I like anything else? What
time did I want my shaving water in the morn
ing? What time should I like breakfast, and
did I prefer tea or coffee ? Each one of those
questions was put on a separate visit, and at
last, in despair, I told her that what I wanted
most on earth was to be allowed to smoke a
cigar in peace. She left me very reluctantly
and I rather fancy that she waited outside the
door expecting every moment to hear me drop
the china dog, or the stuffed bird under the
glass shade. However, on the following morn
ing she seemed quite cheerful again, and I
supposed that as she had found that I could
pass one evening in the place without breaking

Some Queer Requests

93

up her happy home, I might be trusted to remain

there for the rest of the week.
One often meets curious landladies when
touring round the country. Of course, the
lodgings that one goes to are always booked
beforehand, and the landladies are always ac
customed to theatrical and professional people.
Some weird stories are related of the way in
which actors have taken their revenge on land
ladies who have been rather too anxious to get
rich quickly, at the actors expense. One actor,
who had been charged extra for lights, boots,
window cleaning, cruets, kitchen fire and attend
ance, determined that the landlady should have
cause to regret her misdeeds.
I do not know whether this story is true,
probably it is not, and I rather fancy it has
been told before somewhere; but it is reported
that this actor took his revenge by nailing a
fresh herring underneath the table. In the course
of a few days the fresh herring became no
longer fresh. Consequently, when people went
there to take the rooms, the first thing they
did was to remark on the curious smell there
was in the place. The rooms were never taken.
The landlady could not understand where the
smell came from. She spring-cleaned the
room. She had the boards taken up in the
hope of finding a dead rat or a mouse, and

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Woes of a Wizard

she called in the landlord and abused him for

not seeing to the drains. The landlord, who
knew quite well that the drainage system was
imperfect, and that if he was not very careful
the local authority would be down on him, agreed
that the landladys demands were just, and had
fresh pipes and things put in at the cost of
about twenty-five pounds. But still the room
retained its strange scent. At last, one day, one
of the landladys children was playing in the
sitting-roomwhich no one would ever rent
and the youngster toddled under the table, and
screamed apparently at nothing. The landlady
rushed to see what was the matter. . . . But
I have no wish to harrow your feelings with
further details.
Theatrical landladies are not always active in
attending to the wants of their victims, I know
a young actor who became so exasperated with
a landlady who refused to answer the bell, unless
she happened to be passing his room, that one
day he walked from the sitting-room to his bed
room and pulled at the bells as hard as he could
for five minutes. He was just beginning to
realise that bell-pulling is an excellent exercise,
and that he had had nearly enough for that
day, when the landlady sauntered in.
Did you want anything, sir?
Of course. I rang. Ive been ringing

Some Queer Requests

95

for the last five minutes. Didnt you hear

me ?
Hear you ? Hear you indeed ? Me usband
and I could hardly ear ourselves speak for the
noise. We wondered what was the matter!"
Another landlady story. This perhaps has no
place in a chapter entitled Queer Requests,
and yet the landlady, who is the heroine of the
story,
would tell you that theactor, who is
the other figure in the story, certainly put a
very queer request to her. It was simply this :
he asked her, as a favour, not to steal his sugar,
jam, and butter. These things were kept in
a cupboard in the sitting-room. The landlady
was very indignant, and protested that she never
took anything in her life, and that she was
not likely to take that mans butter, because
she did not like it ; and as to his jam, well,
she never ate jam.
Two days went by, and, though the actor felt
certain that he was being robbed, he could
not fix upon a way of trapping the land
lady. But at last he invented this trick ; and
if you are staying in lodgings, and think that
the landlady is robbing you, you may find it
useful. He caught three flies, and he put one
in the butter-dish, one in the jam-jar, and one
in the sugar-basin. He put a lid on each of
these things, and so imprisoned the unfortunate

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Woes of a Wizard

flies. When he returned home in the evening,

and found that the hies had flown, he called
the landlady up and told her what he had done,
and how the flies were missing. At first she
protested that she had not been to the cup
board ; but in a moment of truthfulness she
added that it was a mean trick to play on an
old woman.

CHAPTER IX
CONFEDERATES AND MESMERISTS

imagine that I can hear some of my

I CAN
very candid friends sighing as they read the

title of this chapter, and saying to themselves :

Now we shall hear some of the fine old crusted
yarns about confederates, that have been told
about every conjurer of any note. Devant will
father some of those anecdotes, and will try and
make us believe that he has had the experiences
himself.
Let me undeceive and disappoint these candid
friends at once. I am not going to tell you any
old yarns. I merely want to have my say about
confederates and mesmerists.
I have said elsewhere in this book that I do
not employ confederates. I repeat that state
ment now because I do not want you to forget
it, and because I am well aware that the majority
of people who think at all about conjuring tricks,
as performed on the stage, say to themselves :
Yes, that's all very well, but you could see that
97

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Woes of a Wizard

the man who went on to the stage is used to it.

Hes a confederate, of course.
I always do my best to prevent people from
coming to that conclusion about our perform
ance, but I know I do not always succeed. My
usual plan, when I require the assistance of
some member of the audience on the stage, is
to ask for a man who is with friends, so that
every one in the audience may see that the man
is known to other people. I once made this
request to an audience, but no one came forward.
I particularly dont want any man to come
up who is by himself, I said. I want a man
who is one of a party of friendsthe more the
merrier.
At last, after a few moments waiting, a man
slouched out of his seat at the back of the hall,
and came towards the stage.
I aint with friends, he said, jerking his
thumb to the back of the hall, theyre only my
four kids and the old woman; but if theyll
do------
No one heard the rest of the sentence because
the audience laughed. That man unwittingly
did me a bad turn. He meant well, but his little
speech spoiled him. The audience had an idea
that he was a member of the company, a con
federate, of course, and that it was part of his
business to be a kind of clown. They were very

Confederates and Mesmerists

99

disappointed, because he was exceptionally stupid ;

and of all the woes that a wizard has to put up
with, a stupid assistant is the worst!
Some audiences are very easily pleased. They
will applaud enthusiastically at any little allusion
to their town in the course of a trick ; and if I can
persuade them that I am really in a fix, and that
a trick has gone wrong, they become almost
hysterical with delight. I find that it does not
always pay to introduce politics into my patter.
It does not at all follow, because I find myself in
front of what I consider to be an exceptionally
bright and intelligent audience, that I shall be
doing right in making jokes about Mr. ----------- , but
perhaps I had better get back to my subject
confederates.
A lady, whom I knew slightly, came to me
once after a performance, and said :
``Its all very well for you to say on the stage
that you dont employ confederates, but youve
given yourself awayin this town at any rate.
I told her what was really the truth, that I was
very sorry to hear it, and that I would see that
such a thing did not occur again.
I cant make out why a (several nice ad
jectives which my modesty compels me to leave
out) man like you did not see it before. Here
you are, with bills posted all over the town
announcing that you carry a company of twenty-

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Woes of a Wizard

six persons, and yet, if you count everybody up

who appears on the stage and in the orchestra,
and at the doors, you cant show that you have
a company of twenty-six. Why give yourself
away by announcing that you have a company
of twenty-six, and then showing less than that
number of persons ? Either you have not a
company of twenty-sixin which case your bills
are a fraud,or else the company of twenty-six
is made up of confederates. Now, confess I've
caught you!
I was sorry to have to discourage this young
lady, because it was quite evident that she had
taken a good deal of interest in the performances
of Maskelyne and Cookes Mysteries, and I like
everyone to do that. It pays so nicely when
they do. However, even at the risk of dis
appointing the lady, I had to tell her that there
was still another clue to the mystery about the
bills and the number of people in the company,
and that the secret of the whole matter was
thatclever as we were, are, and mean to bewe
cannot get on very well without money-takers, and
carpenters, and machinists, and advance agents,
and a business manager. As a matter of fact,
the company of Maskelyne and Cookes Mysteries
is often larger than it is advertised to be.
I have said that I will not introduce any old
yarns about confederates, and I will keep to

Confederates and Mesmerists

101

my word, but I should just like to say, before

I get on to the second woe of this chapter, that
anyone can do conjuring tricks by employing
good confederates. A conjurer who is con
stantly performing publicly in small townsas
we often dowould find confederates rather
more bother than they were worth. In a small
town everybody knows everybody else, and so,
if, when the conjurer asked fur someone from
the audience to come up to the stage, Mr.
Confederate stepped forward, the majority of
people would see at once that he was a stranger
to the town, and they would naturally jump to
the conclusion that he was in league with the
conjurer.
There is one more reason why we do not
use confederates. They are old-fashioned, and
a conjurer who wishes to put a good distance
between himself and the bankruptcy court must
not be old-fashioned. Improvements in tricks,
and in the method of doing tricks, are always
being thought out, and the conjurer who is not
one of the thinkers is apt to get considerably
more time for thinking than he requires.
Having shown you how difficult it is to employ
confederates without running the risk of exciting
people's suspicions, I will now proceed to let you
into a few secrets, showing how confederates
can be easily employed in such a way that the

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Woes of a Wizard

audience do not become suspicious. This brings

me to the second woe of my chaptermesmerists.
Mesmerists are real woes to conjurers, and you
will see why they are if you read to the end
of this chapter.
Perhaps I may as well let the cat out of the
bag at once. Well, then, there is this difference
between a mesmeristor rather, a man who
professes to give a mesmeric performanceand
a conjurer. A conjurer tells his audience, by
proclaiming that he is a conjurer, that he is
going to show them something wonderful, but
something which can be explained by the words
sleight-of-hand or illusion. In short, the
conjurer says, in effect : I am going to humbug
you. The mesmerist proceeds on different
lines. He gives you to understand that he
can mesmerise anyone, and that by employing
hypnotic influence he can control the actions of
other people, and make them obey his wishes.
The mesmerist explains his performance by the
one word science, and he would be. righteously
indignant if you suggested that he was a humbug,
and that his entertainment was a piece of trickery
from beginning to endwhich is precisely what
it is.
I know what you are going to say. You
have seen So-and-So and So-and-So, and you
are quite certain that their performances were

Confederates and Mesmerists

103

genuine, because you saw men under their influence put lighted cigar ends on their bare
arms, and run needles into their cheeks, and
thread cotton through their tongues. Besides,
you say to yourself, Mr. So-and-So asked
anyone to come up from the audience to
be mesmerised, and several men of our own
town went up to the stage and let him send
them off and then they did all sorts of silly
things.
I am sorry to have to disillusionise you ; but
that was all humbug, and I will now show you
how it was all done.
In the first place, a man who is going to
give a series of mesmeric performances through
out the country, has to take with him several
men, trained for the work, who are called
mediums. They are never really hypnotised;
it is not necessary that they should be, because
these men are good actors, and they probably
make more sacrifices for their work than any
other members of the profession. These men
have taught themselves how to endure pain
without flinching. A lighted cigar laid on their
bare arm causes them no inconvenience. They
have got used to it. A needle stuck into the
arm does not cause so much pain as you would
imagine. These men have a knack of pinching
up a little piece of the arm into which the

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Woes of a Wizard

needle is going to be inserted, and by pinching

the arm properly, and doing the job quickly, the
mesmerist causes very little pain.
Now it would be obviously impossible for a
professional mesmerist travelling through the
country to have a number of these mediums
travelling with him. When he arrived at a
small town, people would know that the mediums
were in the mesmerists company. What is to
be done then ?
In some cases three or four of the mediums
travelling separately, of coursewill go to a
town in which the mesmerist is to perform for
a week, and will take up their residence there
a fortnight or three weeks before the mesmerist
arrives. Then, when the mesmerist makes a
brave show of asking for the assistance of men
from the town in his experiments, and puts the
question to each man : What is your name and
address ? the professional medium is able to
reply quickly, My names William Smith ; Im
a tinsmith by trade, and I live at Number 13
Black Horse Alley. The mesmerist repeats
the address so that all the audience may be led
to believe that William Smith is one of their
townsmen, and then the fun commences.
That kind of thing happens in towns in which
the mesmerist is performing for only two or three
nights. William Smith may come up for an

Confederates and Mesmerists

105

experiment two nights running, but tine people

might get a little suspicious if they heard after
wards that he had been anxious to put a lighted
cigar on his arm for three nights in succession.
In addition to these ``mediums in advance,
the mesmerist will have two or three similar
men in his company, but always travelling
separately. It is understood that any two
mediums who are seen talking to each other,
or travelling with each other, or lodging together,
will be instantly dismissed. There is always
a temptation for the mediums to lodge under the
same roof, because by so doing they get their
lodgings more cheaply than if they go to different
houses.
The mesmerist who is really a good showman
recognises, however, that there are occasions
when he must put forth better efforts to hoodwink
the public. There are times when, to establish
complete confidence in his show, he must secure
confederates in the town in which he is performing,
and he must get them, and engage them, and
pay them, and do all this in such a way that
it will not be in the power of anyone of these
confederates to turn round afterwards and say:
That man bribed me to come on to the stage
and deceive the public.
It will be seen that the mesmerist has a difficult
task before him. This is how he gets through it.

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Woes of a Wizard

The mediums, who travel with the mesmerist

but who arc never seen with himact in the
daytime as scouts for local mediums. They make
it their business to hang round public-houses,
and to strike up acquaintance with the loafers
there. Then, after a friendly drink or two, the
professional medium will tell the loafer that he
is engaged by Professor So-and-So to assist him
in his performance that evening, and that if he
(the loafer) were a good subject he might be
able to get a job as well. The loafer is brought
to the mesmerist for a trial. The mesmerist
makes passes, and suggests to the loafer that
he cannot move his right arm, or cannot shut
his eyes, or cannot do some simple thing which
the loafer knows perfectly well he can do. If
the loafer does not tumble to the game, he
will move his arm when the mesmerist suggests
that he cannot move it. Then the mesmerist
will say, Ah, I'm afraid you will not make a
good subject. Its no use coming on to the
stage unless youre a good subject. The audience
do not like being kept waiting. Its a pity youre
not a good subject, because if you were, I should
be able to give you something for your loss of
timesay, half a crown for the evening. Well,
as you are here, well try again. Now then, look
at me.
More passes ; more suggestions from the mes-

Confederates and Mesmerists

107

merist to the medium. If the loafer is absolutely

devoid of common sense, he will move his arm
when the mesmerist suggests that he cannot
move it, and, of course, in that case, the man
is hopeless and is dismissed. In most cases,
however, the loafer quickly realises that by doing
what the mesmerist suggests he shall do
under the imaginary hypnotic influence, he will
get an engagement to appear that evening for
half a crown.
That is exactly how it is done, and you will
sec that the loafer-medium cannot give the show
away afterwards. He cannot say that the
mesmerist did not experiment with him, and
did not succeed in mesmerising him. If he
confesses that he was shamming at the trial
by the mesmerist, then the loafer-medium stands
confessed to having practised a fraud on the
mesmerist, by pretending to be mesmerised when
he was not in that state.
Occasionally the regular mediums quarrel with
the mesmeristnot often, because the pay is
good and the work lightand then perhaps they
will try and take their revenge on the mesmerist
by giving him away in the very town in which
he is performing. The gullibility of the public
is so great, however, that they have great
difficulty in doing this. A professional medium
will go to a public-house, tell the landlord his

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Woes of a Wizard

story, and to prove that it is true, and that

he can stand the pain of having a lighted cigar
laid on his arm and needles stuck into his calf,
he will submit to those experiments there and
then. Perhaps the landlord will allow the
medium to entertain his customers by showing
the experiment. Do you know what happens
then ? If you think that the mesmerist is given
away, and that he has to fly from the town in
order to prevent himself from being mobbed
by the people, you are very much mistaken.
The medium who has quarrelled with his
employer does not get his revenge so easily, for
when he has told his story in the public-house,
every member of his little audience will
say :
Ah, thats all very well for you to do those
things now; but you were mesmerised right
enough when we saw you at the hall last
night.
The public refuse to be enlightened, even when
the right man is there to do the work. I hope
I may be successful where the professional
medium fails.
I have been assured by a doctor that the pain
of having needles stuck into ones arm is not
nearly so acute as one would imagine ; in fact,
that directly the skin is pierced very little pain
is felt, especially if the needles are very sharp

Confederates and Mesmerists

109

and are insertedas they always arevery

quickly.
I can scarcely hope that the following story
will be believed, but it is absolutely true in all
its details, and I could, if necessary, produce one
of the chief actors in it. I tell it here to show
what an extraordinary amount of pain the regular
mediums of the travelling mesmerist can endure
without flinching.
A certain mesmerist had elaborated his per
formance very cleverly. He had one medium
who could speak very well. This medium was
an educated man, an old 'Varsity man, and he
is now one of our most successful comedians.
As a medium, he found an easy way of earning
a living. The mesmerist would suggestbefore
he put him under the influencethat he should
make a speech onsay, the Home Rule Bill.
Of course the medium would hesitate, and stutter
out that he did not take any interest in politics.
Then the mesmerist would do his sham passes,
and would suggest to the medium that now he
could speak very well on the Home Rule Bill,
and the medium would forthwith deliver an im
passioned speech.
By having this man who could speak well,
and a juggler who was not quite good enough
for a public performer, and a few acrobats, this
mesmerist could give a marvellous performance.

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Woes of a Wizard

One day, however, there was an accident on the

stage with the acrobats. They used to finish
the performance by making a pyramid on the
stage. On the occasion to which I refer, one
of the men fell and hurt himself badly. He
yelled with the pain. The mesmerist grasped
the situation at once, and whispered to him :
Be quiet, and theres five pounds for you
after the show, and Ill look after you and your
family, if you have to go into the hospital.
To the audience the mesmerist said :
Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a
slight accident; I shall now be able to give you
practical proof of the value of hypnotic influence.
This man has hurt himself, and you heard him
shriek with the pain, which I know must have
been very real. I have just put him once more
under my influence here the mesmerist made
a few more passesand he will assure you
that he feels nothing. You feel nothing ?
Nothing at all, said the medium with a
smile.
But, ladies and gentlemen, continued the
mesmerist, I cannot keep this on very long
now. It would not be fair to the man. He is
going to the hospital, and if you want the testi
mony of the doctors there to the value of hypnotic
influence, I have no doubt that they will be able
to give it.

Confederates and Mesmerists

111

The curtain was lowered, and crowds of people

flocked to the local hospital. By this time the
mesmerist had telephoned to every doctor in the
neighbourhood, and there was quite a procession
of carriages on the road to the hospital. To
cut a long story short, the injured manhe had
broken his legwas undressed and put to bed,
and his leg was set. The man was supposed
to be under the influence of the mesmerist all
the time, and he never flinched once the whole
time. All those doctors were taken in by the
mesmerist, and for the rest of his engagement
he did enormous business.
Some months afterwards, when business was
not so good, and the injured medium had re
turned to the company, the mesmerist whispered
to him on the stage one evening L
Bill, you couldnt manage to break your
blooming leg again, could you? Id make it
worth your while. Same terms as before.
At that time Bill was prosperous and he did
not want to break his leg, and so the mesmerist
had to be content without that advertisement.
Bill is not so prosperous now, but I do not think
that anything would tempt him to go through
such a performance again. When he told me
the story, he said that he could nearly cry at the
very thought of the pain he put up with for five
pounds and his pay, and a month in the hospital.

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Woes of a Wizard

I trust that you will now see why I have

included mesmerists in the Woes of a Wizard.
The wizard tells you that he is a trickster, and
that he is going to take you in with his tricks.
The mesmerist professes to do his hypnotic
experiments scientifically, and from the moment
he steps on to the stage till the moment the
curtain is lowered the mesmerist is a trickster
of the worst kind. He is deceiving the public
while professing to do something else.
I do not like to see the public gulled in this
way ; hence this chapter.

CHAPTER X
A REAL ROMANCE

often been asked whether I have

I HAVE
ever performed under trying circumstances.

I do not like to tell the good people who put

that question to me that there is no polite
adjective which quite describes some of the
difficulties I have had to contend with. What
do you say, for instance, to doing conjuring
tricks when you are nearly doubled up with
rheumatism ? I have often done that. I re
member, on one occasion, I was announced to
perform at a hydro at Buxton, This was many
years ago. I had been staying in Buxton in
order to try and cure my rheumatism. On the
evening that I was to perform I was thinking that
Buxton, as a cure for rheumatism, was a perfect
amateur at the game. I have no doubt that I
should have regretted exceedingly that I had spent
so much good money to no purpose, if I had
happened to have paid my hotel bill.
If you read that last sentence very carefully, you
113
8

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Woes of a Wizard

may discover why I could not cancel my engage

ment at the hydro; although my rheumatism
had had a good try at making me give up con
juring for the time. It seemed to me that the
town of Buxton resented the use to which I
was putting it. It seemed to be saying to me :
Look here ; we dont mind curing your rheuma
tism, but we dont do that sort of thing for
nothing. Everybody who comes here pays an
awful lot for the privilege ; why should you try
and make money out of us ?
1 have often heard of public performers who
have boasted that they have appeared in public,
at times when they would rather have done
anything else, simplyso they have said
because they did not want to disappoint the
public.' I cannot say that I had any such
regard for the feelings of the public. The only
part of the public that I did not wish to
disappoint was my landlord ; and as I imagined
that if I did disappoint him he would not take
his troubles lying down, I decided that I must
go through with the conjuring.
Had I been able to get the money I wanted
in any other way, I would have risked disappoint
ing the public by not performing before them.
I would cheerfully have left them there in the
hydro, lamenting that their great opportunity for
seeing me was gone, and might never return.

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115

I would have turned my back on the dear public,

and would have ignored them altogether ; only, you
see, I wanted the good gold that the kind public
was going to pay to see me. When I hear of
some great manusually an actor or a musician
going on to a stage or platform when he does
not want to, and giving his show just because
he does not wish to disappoint the public,
I feel that I must get away in a corner all to
myself, and snigger.
But to return to my hydro. My rheumatism
was so painful that I had to he wheeled to the
place in a bath-chair. Unfortunately for me, one
dear old lady, who afterwards sat in the front
row at my performance, saw me get out of the
bath-chair. The lady was deaf, and, therefore,
when she thought that she was talking in a
whisper, she was really speaking in the tone of
voice that you would use if you wanted to frighten
the birds away from your ripe strawberries. You
could hear that old lady shouting all over the
room, and this is what she thought she was
whispering to the lady on her right :
My dear, how does he do it ? (I was taking
some eggs out of my mouth.) I'm sure hes ill,
and in pain. I saw him get out of a bath-chair.
It must hurt him to take all those eggs out of
his mouth. See what awful faces hes making.'
Perhaps some of my readers, who have seen

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Woes of a Wizard

me do that trick, may remember that when I take

the eggs out of my mouth, I pretend that the
operation is extremely painful. As a matter of
fact the grimaces I make are quite realistic.
Once when I was having a tooth out, I caught
sight of myself in the glass, and every time I do
my egg trick I reproduce the expression I saw
on my face, when the dentist was attacking me.
The dear old lady at the hydro was quite right.
I was hurting myself horribly by performing, and
I suppose my expression of pain was too much like
the real thing. As a matter of fact, there was
no deception whatever about it. When I heard
the dear old lady condoling with me, my pain
grew worse, because I knew from experience that
the last thing a public performer may do is to
allow his audience to see that he is not in his
tip-top best form. Once let the public, in front
of you, get the idea that you are performing
simply because they have paid to come in and
see you, and that you do not want to perform,
and you make yourself a failure at once. The
public like to think that your performance amuses
you as much as it does them.
Perhaps it does sometimes. The public also
expects that you shall always be at your best; and
if you are not at your best, the public thinks
that it has been defrauded of part of its money.
I have heard it suggested that the public, in doing

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117

this, are very hard-hearted and exacting. Per

sonally I do not think that they are anything of
the kind. They have paid their money in the
expectation of being entertained ; and if they are
not amused, they have a perfect right to be cross
at having spent their money badly. Whether, in
this case, the entertainer ought conscientiously to
return the money at the doors, as the public go
out, is a matter so serious that I cannot bear to
think of it. I may add that I have never felt
myself called upon to return any money.
My performance, on the particular night to
which I refer, was an absolute failure. It got
about that I was ill, and immediately the audience
settled among themselves that I was a wretched
conjurer. I can say, without any hope of
being contradicted, that on that particular night
the audience were quite right. Every time I
worked in a joke the members of the audience
looked at each other, and then the old lady
shouted : Shocking ! How does he manage
to keep It up ? I think its too bad to expect
him to go on,`` I noticed that the lady showed
no inclination to go herself. Every time I came
on to the platform I could hear her remarking
that I looked worse and worse, and she was sure
I should not last out the evening. I am afraid
I disappointed the old lady.
The performances at the hydro were not

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Woes of a Wizard

always a complete success. I believe I was the

first conjurer to introduce the system. I used
to go to a hydro and get permission to give a
performance in their big drawing roomgratui
tously of courseand to have a man standing
at the door to make a collection when the
audience went out. That seems all very nice
and easy ; but unfortunately the man who took
the collection was sometimes the head waiter in
the hydro. At the close of the performance he
would stand at the door and hold a plate.
Of course it was beneath my dignity to
appear to take any interest in the result of the
collection. I had always left the platform before
it had begun ; but if any of the audience
imagined that I was ever far away, they were
mistaken. I used to wait anxiously at the back
of the platform until the head waiter had finished
the collection, and then the head waiter would
come towards me, and, somehow or other, he
always had to walk behind a screen, or a big
fern, or curtain, or something, before he got to
me. Then 1 would hear a chink of money, and
the next moment the head waiter would be
saying to me: Very sorry, sir, I did my best,
but Im afraid I havent done much for you
to-night. We havent got the right people just
now; that's whats the matter.
I made a tour of all the hydros in Buxton,

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119

Curiously enough, according to the head waiters,

not one single hydro ever had the right people
staying there.
At this stage in the chapter you may be
wondering why on earth I have called it "A
Real Romance. Well, when I sat down to
write, I was going to tell quite a different story ;
but the remembrance of that hydro, and my
rheumatism, was too much for me. After all,
there is some connection between the rheumatism
and the romance I am going to tell you about.
It was because of the romance that I caught
a very bad cold; and it was partly owing to the.
cold that I received my first attack of rheumatism.
Let me explain matters.
When I was fourteen years old, I fell in love
with a young lady who was about five years my
senior. With the recklessness of youth I pro
posed to her. She flatly, and without any excuse,
refused me. I asked her the usual question,
as to whether I might hope if I returned again.
She did not offer to be a sister to me ; because
I do not think that she had been reading any
books with that in them just then.
When I received my dismissal, I said to her
sternly that I should call again the same day
next year. She replied that she would be very
pleased to see me, not only on that day next
year, but in the following year, and the year

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Woes of a Wizard

after that, and after that; but that I might call

until I was a grey-headed, doddering old man
and she would not marry me. I shook my
auburn locksI had a lot of auburn locks then
crushed my soft felt hat down on my head and
repeated my determination to call on that day
next year.
The year went by too quickly. I did not
forget the lady whom I had honoured by asking
to be my wife ; but when the day was fast
approaching when I should have to ask her
for the second time or break my word, I
found that I was absolutely and entirely without
money.
The lady lived at a popular seaside place
some distance from London. I could not borrow
the money for the train fare, because I had always
had a strong objection to getting into debt ; and,
besides, I did not know anyone who would
advance me the sovereign without a better
security than I could offer. At last, in my despair,
I made up my mind what I would do. I stole
away from my home, went to a friends house,
and blacked my face with burnt cork. I had
managed to scrape enough money together just
to pay for the excursion ticket, but I had realised
that in all probability, in the joy of seeing me
again and hearing me renew my declaration of
love, the young lady would be so overpowered

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121

by her emotion that she would want to go out

and have lunch with mea large lunchand
perhaps a drive on the sea-front in the after
noon.
Well, when I had blacked my face I knew that
I should be able to get that extra money, I
did what I had never done before and have never
done since. I did conjuring tricks in the train
going down ; on the beach when I got there ; and
in the train coming back.
It is not easy to do conjuring tricks in a
railway train ; but I seemed to be in luck that
morning, for the train stopped pretty frequently.
When it did, I jumped out of one third class
carriage and into another, and in this way I had
several changes of audience during the morning.
I did the cup-and-balls trick. I suppose that I
must have got somewhat careless towards the
end of the morning, because I know that once
the train stopped suddenly and jerked me and
my little table and my tricks all over the
carriage.
A child who saw a ball disappear under the
seat thought it was part of the programme,
and insisted on my getting the ball back again
without getting under the seat myself. I saw
an opportunity here of doing a good trick. I
rolled up my sleeve, put my hand under the
seat to get the ball, at the same time telling the

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Woes of a Wizard

child that she had made a mistake, and had not

seen a ball roll there. She contradicted me, and
I was about to show her that she had been
mistaken, and that what she had really seen was
a young rabbit, when I felt my arm pounced
upon by a brute of a dog that had been lying
under the seat. It was true that I produced
the rabbit; but it was painfully evident that the
rabbit wished I had produced something else.
The dog took a keen, intelligent interest in
the rest of the performance. I think he ex
pected me to produce a few more rabbits for
him.
When I got down to the seaside I went on
to the beach, set up my table, and began to
perform. In the innocence of my young heart
I had not troubled to find out that it was neces
sary to get permission from the town authorities,
before I could perform on the beach. That is
why a policeman moved me on six times in the
first hour, and said that if I did not clear off I
should know what would happen.
By that time I had taken, altogether, about
a sovereign ; and so I thought I might reasonably
go to the young lady once more and repeat my
proposal.
First of all I had to go away in a quiet corner
and wash the burnt cork off my face, and leave
my table and tricks in a cloak-room. Having

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123

done this I sat down by the sad sea waves to

compose a suitable form of address for the
young lady. I suppose that the efforts to get
any other rhyme but dove must have occupied
rather more time than I had anticipated it would,
because when I rose to pay the eventful call
it was half-past three in the afternoon.
I went to the house, and my heart nearly
stopped beating. The front door had just been
painted. I do not know why that fact increased
the action of my heart; but I know that I had
an idea that the family had all gone, and that
the door had been painted in order to oblige a
new tenant. However, after a period of five
minutes, during which I said my form of pro
posal over again to make quite sure that I had
got it all right, I went up to the door and tapped
very lightly.
The door was opened by the policeman who
had moved me on on the beach that morning !
I saw at a glance that he did not recognise
me, and so I stammered out that I wished to see
Miss A.
He grinned all over his silly face and informed
me that I meant the missus. I told him that
I was a friend of hers. He shook me by the
hand and said that any friend of his missus
was a friend of his. I did not like to tell him
that he had acted in any but a friendly way to me

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Woes of a Wizard

that morning, and so I just waited silently while

he fetched his missus, She had been washing
something in the scullery. Her sleeves were
rolled up to her elbow and smelt of soap-suds.
When she saw me she pretended, at first, that
she did not remember me, and then I caught
her in the act of tapping her forehead, and
motioning to her husband. He was kind enough
to suggest that perhaps I would come and have
tea with them ; and he even went so far as to
hint that he knew of a place where some specially
good shrimps were to be bought for a mere
nothing. I dont think I heard anything else that
he said, because I was thinking of what would
happen if he recognised in me the Christie
Minstrel Conjurer he had moved on on the beach
in the morning. At last I said that they were
very kind, but I had some friends in the town,
and I would go to them and come back and
have tea. The policeman shook me by the
hand warmly, and said that he would be very
pleased to see me again. My fair charmer
also shook me by the handand it was very
soapy!
I did not go back there again. When I said
I would, I deliberately and intentionally lied
to the good people. I roamed about on the
beach and caught the heavy cold to which
I have alluded. That is the only lie I have

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125

ever told in my life, and I am very sorry

for it.
Can you imagine that any conjurer has had a
greater disappointment than that which I ex
perienced when I was the chief figure in this
Real Romance ?

CHAPTER XI
A FEW PUPILS

NE morning I was visited by a gentleman

in a great state of excitement, who sent
In his card with the request that he wished to
see me on very particular business. When he
came into the room, he immediately began asking
what were my terms for lessons, and when I
could begin to teach.
Its a very serious case now, he said, and
I should like you to begin at once.
Thinking that the man was slightly mad
I have often been visited by madmenI stepped
back a little and asked him what case it was
that was so serious. Then he burst out laughing
and said that, of course, I did not understand.
He went on to explain that it was not he who
wanted the lessons; his wife wanted them.
Even then I could not understand why the
case should be so serious. At last he confessed
to me that his wife had seen my performance ;
had come back mystified ; and had not slept
126

A Few Pupils

127

since that day for thinking how some of my

tricks were done.
The fact is, my dear sir, he said, my wife
is suffering from an attack of violent curiosity.
She does not really take an intelligent interest
either in you, or your tricks ; she's simply mad
because she doesn't know the secrets, and the
doctor tells me that during the last week she
has been knocking herself up through the worry
of not being able to satisfy her own curiosity.
He then asked me whether I would go and
give his wife the lessons.
I gave that lady five or six lessons, but I
do not believe that she ever paid the slightest
attention to them, after the first five minutes.
All she wanted to know was how each trick
was done. Directly I had given her that
information she showed scarcely any interest in
the lesson ; but occasionally she would assure
me that the trick could not possibly be done in
the way I said it was done.
On another occasion a man came to me and
said he very much wanted to learn how to do
a few tricks. He said that his wife was a very
great vocalist; his daughters played the piano,
the violin, and recited ; and whenever they went
out he really felt out of it. He said he used
to have to go on the stage and screw the
music-stool up, and open the piano, and shift

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Woes of a Wizard

the piano whenever they wanted him to, and

generally act as a kind of upper servant. He
thought that if he learnt a few conjuring tricks
he might do something on the stage.
This man really had a good idea of how some
tricks were performed. What he wanted me
to do was to give him a few lessons, so that he
might be absolutely certain of doing the things
properly. He was a middle-aged man, and he
had never before attempted anything of the kind.
The first time I went to his house I noticed
that my arrival caused a great deal of commotion.
My new pupil was a long time in making his
appearance ; and when he burst into the room,
rather hot and flurried, he excused himself for
keeping me waiting by saying that his wife had
wanted to see him on very important business.
During the lesson my pupil's wife came in to
interrupt us three or four times, and at subse
quent lessons she never let us alone. I used to
see her and her daughters peeping round the
corners, and through curtains and windows, to
see the pupil receiving his instructions.
I could not help noticing, too, that whenever,
in the course of the lesson, I wanted a sheet of
paper, or a glass, or some lumps of sugar, or a
jug of cold water, or any other trifle like that,
my pupil always seemed to have some little
difficulty in getting what he wanted. He

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A Few Pupils

generally returned with the particular article I

had asked for in the course of the trick I was
teaching ; but he was always very hot and flurried
when he came back, and always appeared to
have had a long argument with some one. I
could not understand what was the secret of this
little mystery ; but it was soon revealed to me.
Just as I was setting out for one lesson, I
received a hastily written letter from my pupil.
He said that he could not look me in the face,
but, at the same time, it was quite impossible for
him to go on having any more lessons. He said
that it was difficult for him to explain ; but the
fact of the matter was, he had a wife and
daughters who were of the opinion that he would
never learn to do conjuring tricks without making
a fool of himself, and they had so worried him
not to have lessons, and to give up all idea of
having lessons, that, at last, simply to get a little
peace in his house, he had decided to comply
with their requests. Therefore, he could not
have any more lessons, and he was very sorry,
and hoped I would understand. From what I
saw of that pupil I am inclined to think that he
would have made a very good conjurer. As to
his qualities as a married man I will be discreetly
silent. He will probably read this book ; in
which case I hope he will forgive me for relating
this story.
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Woes of a Wizard

The smartest pupil I ever had was a doctor,

who came to me for some finishing lessons. I
had impressed on him the importance of making
all the movements with his hands as naturally as
possible, and he thanked me for that good advice.
When I was on my way to another engagement,
I put my fingers into my waistcoat pocket to
take out some money for a cab fare, and found,
to my surprise, that instead of a guineawhich
I should have received from my pupilI had
only two shillings. My pupil had taken me at
my word ; and when he changed his sovereign, and
substituted the shilling, the movements of his
hands had certainly been natural. I ought to
add, in justice to him, that when I got home again
I found a note awaiting me with a cheque for
a sovereign inside it; and I do not think I have
ever given a pupil so much genuine pleasure
as I did to that one, by allowing myself to be
caught napping.
Many people come to me and ask me to teach
them one trick. I suggest to them that they
may find themselves in a little difficulty. If they
do the tricks well they will get encored, and
if they do not know any other tricks they will
not be able to respond ; while, on the other
hand, if they dont do the trick well no one will
ever want to see them again. I suggested this
once to a young man who replied that he could

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131

easily get over that difficulty. If the people

encored him he would do the trick over again.
Perhaps you will not see the point of that joke ;
in which case I may tell you that a good conjurer would as soon think of whistling at his
mother-in-laws funeral, as he would of doing one
trick twice over in the same evening, unless, of
course, he adopted quite a new principle for
the second performance.
I once had a very enthusiastic pupil. He
insisted on my experimenting with him in some
very interesting problems in black magic. In
order to carry out our series of illusions, we re
hearsed some of them in the garden, and part
of my pupils furniture had to be moved from
the house on to the lawn at the back. It was
not until we had got into the middle of a very
interesting rehearsal that we discovered that
every window of the adjoining houses, from
which a view of us could be obtained, was filled
with curious faces. Later on in the afternoon
an agent of the landlord called to see my pupil.
The agent was rather surprised at seeing my
pupil there, and said :
Oh, you are here, then. They told me you
were moving.
My pupil assured the agent that the report
was entirely false. It appeared that some
one had been to the landlord and had told

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him that my pupil was shooting the moon

in broad daylight. The landlord's agent had
expected to find the dining-room table being
carried gingerly over the garden wall, and the
drawing-room chairs hidden away behind a couple
of evergreen bushes. I assured the landlords
agent that a conjurer would not be quite so
foolish as to move his household goods by day
light.
Then my pupil chimed in and told the land
lords agent that it would be quite easy for a
conjurer to vanish any particular article of
furniture, when he made up his mind to do so.
The landlord's agent seemed rather impressed
by this, and entered into a long conversation with
us about some of the principles of conjuring.
When he rose to go, he seemed to be rather in
a hurry, and instead of going back through the
house he went out at the garden gate. At the
same moment we heard a terrific rapping at
the front door of the house, and going in we
discovered two policemen on the door-step.
We then found that the landlords agent was
not the landlords agent ; that he was the part
ner in a firm of very clever burglars ; and that
he had been told off to keep us amused in the
large garden at the back of the house, while
his principal partner got into the front of the
house and did the vanishing trick with a large

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133

quantity of silver. The burglar had been seen

leaving the house by the police, and they had
given chase, but had been unable to find him.
My pupil took the matter very philosophically
and said that it served him right for bragging
about the abilities of a conjurer. He also looked
at me in a way that betokened distrust. I
fancy he considered that I ought to have known
that the landlords agent was not the landlords
agent.
I once got the credit for giving a lesson which
I never gave. As a child I used to be rather
fond of ventriloquism, and I used to amuse the
family by my attempts at imitating people. One
day a boy came to me and asked me to give him
a lesson in ventriloquismI was not more than
a boy myself thenand my brother told him that
he should observe the way in which I held my
mouth while I made the sound appear to come
from the roof or the cellar.
At that moment a fearful screech was heard,
and then a low moan. Directly this ceased, the
company heard the me-owing of a cat, and they
all said that it was the best imitation of a cat
they had ever heard. I encouraged them in
this belief. At last the sound died away, and
they all came round and congratulated me upon
my splendid success, and asked me how I
did it.

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I told them that it was quite simple. All they

had to do was to get a cat and make it me-ow,
and then imitate the sound. No sooner had
I said this than my friends were startled out of
their wits by a fiendish shriek, which they said
was unlike any cat they had ever heard. I told
them that they did not understand cats, and that
the shriek was quite natural. They replied
that I had been trying to do too much; that
the first imitations were all right; but the second
were no use.
There, they said, as the me-owing started
again, thats more like the real thing.
My friend went away and thanked me for
the lesson, and said I was the most wonderful
ventriloquist he had ever heard. When they
told him afterwards that the man who had been
to see after the gas had taken up a couple of
boards in our dining-room, and that the cat had
somehow jumped down the hole and had been
imprisoned there for twenty-four hours, my pupil
wrote to say that I was an absolute fraud.
Sometimes I think he was right.

CHAPTER XII
MINOR WOES

CONJURER very often has a good deal

to put up with, in the course of his
performance. To begin with the conjurer
always runs a certain risk, when he asks some
one to assist him by coming on the stage, of
getting a man who tries to be funny at the
conjurers expense,
I once had a man who began tapping the
stage with his foot directly he arrived upon it.
I had asked him to come up and hold a paper bag ;
but whether it was that he thought I was going
to play a trick on hima thing I never do on
anyone whom I ask to come on the stageor
whether it was he was really nervous ; or whether
it was that he was simply trying to be funny
and to amuse his friends in the audience, I never
knew ; but he point-blank refused to do what
I asked him to do, and kept on tapping the
stage with his foot. At last the audience got
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as tired of him as I was, and he had to go

back again.
The man who wants to be funny never gives
the conjurer a chance. Just as you have got
him to do what you want, and have secured the
complete attention of the audience, the man will
look round and pretend to be extremely nervous.
Sometimes he will assure you that the watch
really is not in his pocket ; that he has not seen
it ; that he doesnt want it ; that he hopes you
wont give it to him. I have only one way
of dealing with men like that. It is hopeless
to continue the entertainment, and so I suggest
that when he has finished entertaining his friends
and the rest of the company I will go on. That
plan usually succeeds.
Then again, the unfortunate conjurer often
finds the audience reluctant to assist him in a
trick. Sometimes I do a trick that necessitates
my going amongst the audience, and asking
ladies if they will write down figures on pieces
of paper. It seems an easy matter. I have
a piece of paper and a pencil in my hand, ready
to offer to the first lady who says that she will
write three figures on the paper, and yet I often
have the greatest difficulty in persuading a lady
to take the piece of paper and pencil out of my
hand,
The strange part of it is that when one

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137

lady has taken the first piece of paper, and the

first pencil, I never have any difficulty in getting
several ladies to take the remainder of the papers.
It seems to me, in this little matter as in others,
a lady is not happy until someone else has set
the fashion, and then she is only too eager to
follow it.
I used to experience a certain amount of
trouble at performances for charitable institutions.
Sometimes I arrived at a hall ready to begin,
and found that the vicar, who had arranged the
entertainment, had considered it necessary that
there should be a short service, both before and
after my entertainment. It always seemed to
me to be a little incongruous to hear conversation
like this :
Has he come ?
Yes, and he says hes all ready to begin.
Oh ! turnings to the audience in front of him.
Children, Mr. Devant has come, so we will
now begin by singing a hymnthe first hymn
on the paper."
At the conclusion of the performance, the vicar
would sometimes begin a little moral sermon, and
use my conjuring tricks as a text. At one time
I used to hear the same sermon from different
men so often that I got quite tired of it. It
used to come out something like this :
Now, dear children, you have seen Mr.

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Woes of a Wizard

Devant perform some marvellous tricks. He

has done things which seem almost impossible;
they are mysteries to us. But, my dear children,
there are other mysteries in the world which
are equally inexplicable. There is the mystery
of----- and then would follow a long catalogue
of childish sins.
On one occasion the clergyman went one
better than this. He said, speaking of my
entertainment:
Now, my dear children, you have seen some
marvellous tricks, so wonderful indeed that they
amount almost to miracles ; but if you would read
of something still more wonderful; if you would
read of some real miracles, let me entreat you
to turn to your Bibles."
I am a reverent man, and I thought that that
appeal was not quite in the best of taste.
At the end of some of these charitable perform
ances the vicar or teacher would get up and
propose a vote of thanks to the conjurer. He
would say:
Now, children, you have seen Mr. Devants
conjuring entertainment. I am sure it is very
good of Mr. Devant to come all the way down
here from Piccadilly, on purpose to amuse you
for just one hour. The weather is so cold that
I am sure Mr. Devant must have had a most
uncomfortable journey; but we are all exceedingly

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139

grateful to him for coming here, and we hope

to see him again. Now I want you all to
say with me Thank you very much. Good
night
After that there would be : One, two, three
now! and then a chorus of squeaky little voices,
all saying : Thank you very much. Good-night.
On those occasions I always felt uncommonly
like a hypocrite, because although the weather
may have been cold, and the journey may have
been tiresome, Mr. Devant did not go to the
place entirely because he wished to amuse the
children. There was a certain fee which was
slipped into his hand as he left the hall. Still,
as it pleased these good people to let the children
think that I was so exceedingly generous, it was
not any business of mine to try and destroy
the good opinion they entertained towards me.
I always had a nice little speech ready, in which
I told them I was very pleased to come,which
was quite true; and I hoped I should see
them again,which was equally true ; and then
I wished them a very good-night.
At some performances of this kind the children
were very badly behaved. The moment I had
begun there would be a chorus of Hes got
it up his sleeve, or Weve seen that before,
or If he doesnt take care hell drop it. I
have gone into halls where that has been going

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Woes of a Wizard

on, and the unfortunate conjurer on the stage

has not been able to make himself heard, I
usually found, when I had to perform before such
children, that I could secure absolute silence by
threatening to stop the entertainment, and to
go away directly anyone of them spoke. Of
course I had not the slightest intention of doing
anything of the kind, because, after all, people
do not pay a conjurer to go away. But this
harmless deception always produced the desired
effect.
Sometimes the teachers of the children would
take upon themselves to preserve very strict
order, and would ask me beforehand not to
interfere. Consequently, sometimes, just as I
was getting into the exciting part of the trick
and was about to produce a rabbit out of a silk
handkerchief, the teacher would come forward
and say :
Excuse me, do you mind waiting just one
moment ? Thank you. Now then, Johnnie
Blinkings, come here. If you cant behave
yourself better than that you had better go home.
Stand on the form,
At other times Johnnie Blinkings, or a boy
just like him, would be called up to receive
corporal punishment, and would be returned to
his seat dissolved in tears. Then the teacher
would look round smiling at me and say :

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141

Thank you, Mr. Devant, now if you would

continue I should be very much obliged.
It used to make the tricks fall rather flat when
they did that.
I have occasionally suffered a few woes at the
hands of my assistant. I remember on one
occasion I was performing the box trick before a
very large audience in the Midlands, an audience
composed principally of people who worked in
factories, and who were exceedingly keen on
discovering how the box trick was done. My
assistant had got into the box ; the box was
placed on an ordinary chair; the curtain was
pulled in front of it, and I turned to the audience
and explained that I would endeavour to amuse
them with a little experiment in sleight-of-hand
while the man was getting invisibly out of his
box, and vanishing into space. Upon this par
ticular occasion when I returned to the box I
thought it felt unusually heavy. However, it
was too late then to tell the audience that I
was afraid that the man had not vanished. The
cords were undone, the wrapper was taken off,
the box was unlocked, and there was my assistant
fast asleep inside. I discovered afterwards that
the man had been dining not wisely but too
well, and that that was why he had fallen asleep.
He never fell asleep in the box again, because
he never had the chance to get inside it.

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Woes of a Wizard

The remembrance of that mishap with a box

reminds me of another that I once had to endure.
I related the story in the last Christmas number
of To-day and I reproduce it here by kind
permission of the editor of that paper. The
story relates to an event that happened two or
three years ago. It was soon after Mr.
Maskelynes famous box trick case had been
decided. With the permission of Mr. Maskelyne,
I was presenting the wonderful box trick in
the country. At one town I visited I was the
guest of a very old friend of mine, who was
much interested in magic of all kinds, and, just
to please him and to amuse his friends, I gave
a private performance at his house one night.
He had suggested that the box trick could not
be done at a private house, and, to convince
him that he was wrong, I brought the box and
my assistant with me, and we did the trick in
my friends drawing-room. Afterwards, everyone
crowded round and bombarded me with ques
tions, and I suppose it was because I had been
talking so much about the box that when I
went to bed I dreamt about the box trick. My
dreams were of the most awful description.
Everyone in the dream had discovered how
the box trick was done, and I was being laughed
at by jeering crowds. At other times in the
dream I was shut in the box by myself, and

Minor Woes

143

was powerless to. get out, although I had pro

vided myself with a hatchet and hand saw.
Then the dream was changed, and I found,
to my horror, that, although my assistant had
got out of the box, someone else had managed
to get into it, and then, as fast as one man
escaped from the box, another man got inside
itin a most mysterious way.
At length my dreams ended abruptly, and
I woke up to find a burglar standing over me
with a revolver. I pinched myself hard, so
as to make quite sure that the burglar was
not part of the dream, and then I sat up.
The burglar covered my movement with his
revolver.
Speak once, he whispered, and youll
never speak again.
Not having any wish to make him carry out
his threat, I did not speak. Then he said that
if I attempted to escape by the door or window,
he would shoot point-blank at my head. I had
the pleasure of seeing him take a little loose
gold from one of my pockets, and then I had
still greater pleasure in seeing him bark his
shins on the famous box, which stood open at
the foot of the bed.
After he had sworn softly to himself, an idea
suddenly seemed to occur to him. He motioned
to me to get into the box. While I was

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Woes of a Wizard

obeyingunder cover of his revolverhe took

the key from the lock.
Head down, he whispered gruffly ; go on.
Then he pulled the lid of the box down, put
the key in the lock, turned it, and took the
key away.
A moment afterwards I found myself beinglifted up, and before I had time to imagine what
the burglar was going to do with me, I was
deposited on the bed. People who have seen
the box trick will not need to be told that the
burglar had hardly closed the door behind him
before I had escaped from the box. Then I
found my own revolver, and went downstairs
after the burglar. He seemed uncommonly
surprised to see me.
Hands up, I whispered.
Somewhat to my surprise, he put his hands up
without even trying to get at his own revolver.
Then I made him walk backwards into my
bedroom.
Get into that box, I whispered.
He quickly stepped into the box, and did not
remonstrate when I locked him in. The next
thing to do was to cover the box with the
bedclothes, so that my burglar should not alarm
the household. Then I dressed, slipped noise
lessly downstairs to my hosts room, and woke
him up. He seemed quite delighted at the idea

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145

of the box being of some real use in assisting

me to catch the burglar, and insisted on accom
panying me in my search for a policeman.
We obtained the services of a sergeant, who
was simply radiant at the idea of catching a
burglar so neatly. But, to our great surprise,
when we were all in my bedroom, we found
that the bird had flown! The box was there,
properly locked, but the burglar had vanished.
The police-sergeant thought we were playing
a trick on him.
You asked me to come and arrest a
burglar, he said. Kindly produce your
burglar.
I wish to goodness I could, I replied. I
would not let a man like that escape for worlds.
Youre sure there was a burglar? said
the sergeant, looking at me very suspiciously.
I dont quite remember all I said to that
police-sergeant, but I know that my host apolo
gised for my unintelligible explanation, and
suggested that we should search the house.
No, said the police-sergeant, you said the
burglar was in that box. Where is he?
Then I had to eat humble pie, and explain
that the burglar had evidently discovered the
secret of the great box trick ; that was how he
had managed to escape. I could see, even then,
that the police-sergeant did not believe me,
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Woes of a Wizard

although I was in such a state of utter collapse,

at the idea of the secret being discovered, that
I did not pay very much attention to him.
Well, said my host, though the burglar
has escaped from the box he may be in the house
now. Suppose we search.
Not necessary, I said ; it is quite evident
that he left the house, as he entered it, by the
window. I locked the door when I left him here,
and the door was locked when we returned, he
must have got out of the house by the window.
Quite right, Mr. Devant, said a voice
behind us. He did get out of the house by the
window.
We looked round quickly ; there was the
burglar, standing, unabashed, in front of the
police-sergeant!
Arrest him instantly, I cried.
The burglar replied: With pleasure.
At that moment the burglar threw off his
disguise and presented himself before me.
He was my assistant!
The rest of the story is soon told. My
assistant had arranged to play a little prac
tical joke on me. He thought that he had
arranged the box in such a way that
I would not be able to find the secret. Then
he had intended to go to my host, and invite
him to come up and see me imprisoned in the

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147

box. When my assistant saw that I had got

out of the box, he made up his mind to scare
me by getting out of the box himself. My
action in forcing him to get into the box was
exactly what he wanted. I may add that he
has often asked me, since then, to tell him how
I managed to get out; but there are some secrets
that one does not tell, even to ones assistant;
and the secret I made use of on that night
is one of them.
Strange as it may appear to some people, I
do not pretend to be absolutely perfect, and
therefore occasionally tricks go wrong. Some
of my readers may have seen me perform a
trick in which a watch, which has been held in
a piece of paper by a boy from the audience,
disappears, and is subsequently found tied round
the neck of a rabbit which is discovered in the
pocket of another member of the audience. I
have known a watch to slip off the ribbon with
which it has been tied, and so remain in the
mans pocket. The trick is not quite a success
then, and the laugh is against the conjurer.
Sometimes, when the watch has slipped off the
ribbon into the pocket of the man, and there
has been a hole in the pocket, the watch has
gone through the hole and has been mysteriously
lost for some time. I do not like these things
to happen, because when the trick is continued

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Woes of a Wizard

in that way I am never quite certain what

is going to happen next.
It does not do to be too playful with some
people. Once or twice, when I have asked a
man to lend me a watch, I have added jokingly
if I have seen that it is an exceptionally good
onePerhaps you would not mind throwing
it on to the stage ; and they have taken me at
my word and thrown the watches. They have
expected me afterwards, in some miraculous way,
to put that watch together for them, and they
have got quite angry when they have dis
covered that they have smashed up their own
watch.
On the other hand, some people are too pain
fully anxious about the fate of their watches when
they are in my hands. I have often been remon
strated with by an angry old man who has thought
that his watch has been really lost. I have known
an old man to get up and say that it is monstrous
and scandalous, that anyone like myself should
be allowed to comes to their town for one week,
and deliberately lose peoples watches in that
careless fashion ; and sometimes, when a man has
said this, I have heard it suggested afterwards,
by evil-minded people, that the man has been a
confederate of mine, and has simply made that
fuss in order to draw public attention to the
entertainment.

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149

I should like to soy here what I have said

elsewhereand lest there should be any misunder
standing about it, I will add that I am absolutely
in earnestthat I have never, at any time, em
ployed a confederate. Confederates are far too
dangerous for the modern conjurer.
I have often been asked who makes the best
audience, and the questioners usually go on to
answer the question for me by suggesting,
children, of course." But that is not so.
At Christmas-time, when everyone gives
childrens parties, it is a fact that many children
get absolutely blase with regard to conjurers.
Children do not discriminate between a good
conjurer and a bad one, and so do not always give
the conjurer the benefit of their undivided atten
tion. If you begin a trick with a watch in it,
you will hear a rude boy murmur that he has
seen the watch trick before. If you begin a
trick with an egg in it, you will hear someone tell
someone else that so-and-so does that.
These juvenile audiences, and I am afraid
people in general, do not realise that there are
many dozens of different kinds of tricks with
watches and with eggs.
Then there is the absence of applause in a
drawing-room, which makes a man accustomed to
perform before the public feel, for a time, that his
efforts to entertain are not being appreciated. I

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Woes of a Wizard

think the best audience is one composed of people

who really take an interest in conjuring, who have
met at a family dinner party, and who want me
to come and amuse them for one hour. That
time is not long enough for them to get weary
of conjuring tricks, and I get my audience's critical
appreciation.
Only a man who really understands the
principles of conjuring can properly appreciate
an experiment in sleight-of-hand. I do not
believe, with some men, that a great deal of harm
is done by giving away the so-called secrets of
tricks, because, although the people may know
how it is done, that knowledge will simply help
them to appreciate how difficult it is to do it.

CHAPTER XIII
MY NOTE BOOK

often been asked how I manage to

I HAVE
amuse myself when I am tired of enter

taining other people. My reply is that I amuse

myself much in the same way that I try to
amuse others. Whenever I feel tired after a
hard evenings work, I sit down by myself and
do a few new conjuring tricks ; afterwards life
seems less troublesome. Occasionally I get some
amusement during the day, thanks to the kind
ladies who ask me to appeargratuitously, of
courseat bazaars and other entertainments for
charities. It is pleasant to me to know that,
simply by taking three or four dozen eggs out
of my mouth, a real cannon ball out of an empty
hat, and several rabbits from a strangers pocket,
I am adding a little something to the banking
account of a deserving institution. The only
thing I object to at these bazaars is the per
suasive manner of the stall-holders. I always
protest that I am only a poor conjurer, and
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therefore have no money to spare. Its no use.

A lady replied to this excuse once in a novel
way,
Oh, she said, then the money we saw
you catching invisibly in the air in that china
bowl was not real money ?
Indeed, madam, it was real money, I
replied.
Then, she murmured sweetly, if you can
get money so easily, surely you can produce
enough to buy this perfectly charming kettleholderor is it a lamp-shadeEdith ?noa
kettle-holder-only fifteen-and-sixpence.
It was impossible to refuse such a request,
so I took the kettle-holder.
" Now for the money, I said; and taking
a bowl from the stall, I once more caught money
in the air.
How kind of you, said the lady.
Not at all, I replied ; but you will let me
have the kettle-holder, wont you ?
A thousand pardons !of course, said the
lady ; I quite thought I had given you one.
I took the second kettle-holder.
Pardon me, I continued, I thought you
said it was a kettle-holder-I think you must
have made a mistake.
The article that I handed her back again was
an elaborate cushion cover.

My Note Book

153

How stupid of me, said the lady, as

she put the third kettle-holder in a piece of
paper.
Looking up from this simple task she missed
the cushion cover. I was busily engaged in
catching more money in the china bowl.
I am sorry to keep you waiting, I said,
but I havent caught enough yet. Shall I
collect a little money from those people who are
looking at me, and thinking they are going to
have a conjuring performance given to them
for nothing? So I collected about ten shillings
for the good of the charity. At the end I
addressed the people who had gathered round
the stall.
I have here, I said, aerbeautiful
kettle-holderI think you said?
Yes, said the lady; hfteen-shillings-andsixpence.
Now, 1 said, I am going to raffle it for
the good of the cause."
I obtained a sovereign for the kettle-holder,
and the lady was very pleased. When she
went to her large cash box she found three
kettle-holders and a cushion cover neatly folded
up. A few moments afterwards, when I found
that the lady who had won the imaginary kettleholder in tile raffle was looking for me, I left.
I had paid fifteen-shillmgs-and-sixpence to the

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Woes of a Wizard

charity for this little amusement, and it was

only fair that the people who went in for the
raffle, and saw my tricks, should pay something
for their fun.
On the following day I received a letter
from the lady who had been in charge of
the kettle-holder stall. She asked me to help
her at another bazaar! Some people are never
satisfied.
Writing of my catching-money-in-the-air trick,
reminds me of the many occasions on which
I have amused myself with this trick. At one
time, when on tour, I used to conclude this
trick by going among the audience and dis
covering half-crowns in the beards of the men
and the hats of the ladies.
It is very foolish of you to carry money
about in this way," I would say ; you would
do better to keep it in your pocket," and to
their surprise I would leave the half-crowns
with them. Perhaps I would distribute a dozen
half-crownsreal onesduring the course of
the trick.
I remember once watching a dear old lady
as she examined her half-crown. She appeared
to be completely upset at the occurrence. First
she took out her purse, turned the contents
into her lap, and counted the coins. Then
she did sums in an account book. Then she

My Note Book

155

took off her veil and looked at it carefully,

as though she were searching for some secret
pocket that had hitherto escaped her notice.
Finally, she shook her head very slowly to and
fro, evidently with the intention of dislodging
any other stray half-crowns that might be con
cealed there. At last she put the half-crown
I had found in her bonnet, on her lap, and
looked solemnly at it. Apparently she had
made up her mind that there was something
uncanny about that half-crown. When she was
leaving the hall she picked it up between her
thumb and first finger, and held it away from
her. She stopped before the hall-keeper, and
said :
I shall not take this home, young man.
With that she dropped my good half-crown
into the hall-keepers pocket. She appeared
to be relieved at having got rid of the thing
so easily. When she had gone a few steps down
stairs she looked back to see if the hall-keeper
was embarrassed at being in possession of a
magic half-crown. The hall-keeper had refrained
from expressing his sorrow at the occurrence,
and so the lady was quite satisfied. I noticed
that on the following evening the hall-keeper
wore a coat with two large breast pockets on
the outside.
Frequently after performing this expensive

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Woes of a Wizard

trick I have gone outside the hall and watched

the doings of the people who have received
half-crowns. I have generally heard something
like this :
It can't be a good un,
Looks like a good un.
Well, lets change it, anyhow.
Such is human nature.
Then the little party would adjournsome
times to a sweet-shop, sometimesI regret to
sayto a public-house. I knew not what went
on in those places ; but I noticed that when
the people who had had the half-crown came
out again, they generally ran off quickly.
Once on a Saturday evening, after I had
performed this trick, I heard a gentleman ask
his demure and simple-looking young wife if
the half-crown she had received from me was
really a good one.
Dont know, dear, she said sweetly. But
you can put it in the collection to-morrow, ander
Georgeanderhalf a crown will do for
both of us, wont it ?
Some of the people who received half-crowns
evidently told their friends that, when they saw
me coming round, they were to do all they
could to attract my attention, I could always
tell which members of the audience had been
so prepared for the trick. One of them once

My Note Book

157

called me to him and said that he thought

he was not quite surebut he thought he
had half a crown in his beard.
Indeed ! said I ; and can't you find it ?
That I cant.
Let me try, I said.
I saw the happy grin of expectancy come
over the faces of the man and his friends.
Curious," I said, but I cant find it either.
You must have dropped it, or perhaps the barber
took it out when he cut your hair.
After all, however, one ought not to be
either surprised or amused at meeting such
people. Most of us are keen on getting some
thing for nothing. We are born with this
desire strongly implanted in our natures. I
discovered that fact by doing conjuring tricks
before children.
The favourite tricks with children are those
in which the little dears have something given
to themflags, or sweets, or dolls, tor preference.
Then they think that the conjurer is a very
nice man indeed, and so clever, too! Curiously
enough, I have found that audiences at lunatic
asylums have this same liking for tricks in
which some kind of distribution is made. It
does not matter how simple the gifts are, or
how apparently useless to the recipients they
may be ; but, of course, I have always tried to

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Woes of a Wizard

distribute things which I have known would be

acceptable.
On one occasion, however, I failed hopelessly.
I had heard, on getting to a certain asylum, that
many of the patients were very fond of gardening,
and, therefore, they would be delighted if I gave
them a few flower-seeds. I at once went down
to the local seedsman and bought a large bag of
sweet-pea seed. This bag I introduced into a
silk hat at the end of the performance. Under
cover of a handkerchief I broke the paper, leaving
the seed loose in the hat.
There, I said, the good fairies have antici
pated your requirements, and have sent you some
seeds for the garden.
Then I pulled the handkerchief quickly away,
handed the hat down at once to an attendant
who had been in the secret, and he passed the
hat round so that all the patients might see the
contents.
I had retired from the stage and was eagerly
awaiting the applause that I felt sure would
follow the conclusion of this trick. To my
intense surprise it was received in absolute
silence. Thinking that possibly the patients
might be so overcome with joy that they had
forgotten to applaud, I began to prepare for the
next trick, when in rushed the attendant who had
assisted me.

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159

Theres been a mistake, sir!

Mistake ! Ive made no mistake.
Yes, siryouve given em split peas!
When I made my next appearance on the
platform, the patients looked at me in a way that
suggested, as plainly as possible, that they thought
I ought to come and reside with them for a
time.
A performance at a lunatic asylum Is always
a difficult task. The conjurer must not excite
his audience in any way, and, on the other hand,
he must give a very interesting entertainment.
The patients are usually very attentive and critical.
I remember on one occasion a patient played the
piano beautifully for me. I had asked her if
she would play every time I left the platform.
All went well until I began to produce eggs from
my mouth, and then, thinking that my grimaces
were really due to my being in physical pain, she
called to one of the doctors to attend me; and she
would not consent to the performance being con
tinued until the doctor had come on the stage
and felt my pulse. Having been assured that
I was quite well she went back to the piano. I
produced no more eggs that evening.
When I next visited the asylumsome six
months afterwardsI found that my pianist re
membered me, and before I began my performance
she came to me and begged me not to be a fowl

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Woes of a Wizard

again. I promised her that I would not produce

any eggs that evening, and she thanked me and
said she had a little surprise for me. I soon
discovered what it was. As I came on to the
platform she struck up See the Conquering Hero
Comes, and she insisted on playing it right
through, while I stood in the centre of the platform
and waited to begin.
Once on going to a schoolroom to give a
performance I found there was no piano. I had
brought a pianist with me, as usualfor a little
music is of great assistance during a conjuring
performanceand I therefore asked if a piano
could not be provided. But no piano could be
obtained. At last a dear old gentleman came
to me and said that if it was necessary that
I should have a little music, he would be
very pleased to bring his organette and play
on that. I thanked him, and the performance
began.
After my first trick the organette groaned out
the March of the Men of Harlech. This was
bad enough, but at the next short interval the
instrument played the Old Hundredth. After
the third trick it returned to the March of the
Men of Harlech, and after the fourth the audience
were treated once more to the Old Hundredth.
And so we went on during the evening. It
appeared that the old gentleman had bought the

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My Note Book

organette by weekly instalments, and those were

the only tunes he possessed. Since then I have
always stipulated that there shall be a piano
in the room in which my performance is to be
given.

II

CHAPTER XIV

SELLS

DO not think that I have experienced the

Iunpleasantly
worst sell in the world; but I have been
near to it. That distinction belongs,

in my humble opinion (people always say in

my humble opinion when they are feeling rather
pleased with themselves and not in the least bit
humble)as I said, the distinction of having had
the worst sell in the world, belongs to a young
friend of mine who is an author. When he first
began to send out articles and stories to the
papers, he performed what, I believe, some
writers call the boomerang feat; that is to
say, he sent out his stories and articles in such
a manner, that they invariably returned to him.
But one day, to his great surprise, and to
the obvious displeasure of his friends, a paper
accepted one of his stories. That unfortunate
manhe is not quite so unlucky nowjumped
with delight. He bought many copies of the
paper containing his contribution, and sent them
162

Sells

163

to all his friends. Only one man came to con

gratulate him on his success, and he threw out a
broad hint to the effect that, as the budding
author was about to make a good living by his
pen, no doubt he would not mind advancing a
small loan, which would be promptly repaid on
the following Monday. My young friend was so
pleased at his first success, that he would cheer
fully have lent his next years income to any man
who had expressed a wish to have it. Therefore
he advanced the small loan. In the evening, he
recollected that he had expended so much money
on stamps, during the previous two years, that
his literary business still showed a loss, in spite
of that first cheque. In this commercial mood
he sent an article to the same kind editor, and
awaited results. He felt sure that the man who
had accepted his story would be only too pleased
to secure an article by him.
A fortnight went by ; and then one day, while
some half-dozen friends of the young author were
in his study, a letter came for him. He turned
it over, and saw that it was from the paper that
had published his story.
Another cheque !" he exclaimed excitedly ;
and his friends, realising quickly that they would
probably be asked out to a good dinner, con
gratulated the author. But in that merry group
of men was one pessimist.

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Woes of a Wizard

You don't think, suggested the pessimist,

that it can possibly be something returned, do
you ? You see, you havent opened the envelope
yet."
''You neednt worry about that, said the
young author. The paper has only one thing
of mine, and thats a long article. They couldnt
get it into an envelope that size ; besides, you can
see that theres nothing in the envelope except
a note, and a little slip of paper! Now then, you
men, Ill make a small bet with each of you that
the cheque is for something over a fiver.
No one would take the bet. The young
author said that he would not keep them in
suspense ; he would open the envelope.
Of course, he said, as he stuck his thumb
under the flap, and tore the envelope open, you
will all dine with me to-night, and then well all
go to a music-hall and have a good time. To
morrow Ill begin to work on awhat on earth
is this ?
He pulled out the contents of the envelope.
Now comes the sell. You, dear reader,
have had the sell. You, in the innocence of
your young heart, have been thinking that the
envelope did not contain a cheque. That is
precisely where you have been sold. The young
author had a very fat cheque.
I thought I could not begin a chapter on sells
.

Sells

165

better than by perpetrating a sell. I entreat

you not to get cross ; it shall not happen again.
All the other sells in this chapter are genuine.
After reading this part of the book you will
understand why I look so haggard and worn.
If you do not believe that I look like that,
turn to the cover of this book and gaze at my
photograph. You will then agree with me when
I say that the life of a conjurer does not consist
entirely in performing before crowded houses.
Sometimes a sell turns out to be a piece of
good fortune to you. I remember that on one
occasionit was soon after I had received my
first fee as a conjurerI was asked to give a
performance at a charity bazaar. It was not
until after I had finished my work, that I dis
covered that another conjurer had been expected,
and that his name was on all the programmes !
This was a great sell for me, because, even at
that early age, I realised the value of publicity.
I went to the vicar and suggested that the
programme ought to have had my name on it.
The vicar thought for a moment, and then he
suddenly seemed to be particularly pleased about
something. He went to the little room at the
side, in which I was to perform, and announced
to the people who were waiting to pay their
money, that there had been a mistake. Mr. A---------had not arrived ; but Mr. David Devant had

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Woes of a Wizard

been engaged at great expense (it was the first

I had heard of it, but I did not complain), and
therefore the price of admission would have to
be raised from threepence to sixpence. That
vicar was a good business man. Not only did
he give me this testimonial to my superiority to
Mr. A------ the conjurer, but he also rewarded me
with a free advertisement in his church magazine.
Thus, what seemed like a sell turned out to
be anything but a sell.
In most cases, however, my sells have been
quite genuine. Once, when I was a very young
conjurer, I wanted to do a trick with an egg.
I rather prided myself on that trick, and in
order to make it appear as wonderful as possible,
I had a small basin full of eggs on a side-table.
I explained to my audience that it would be
perfectly easy for anyone to perform the trick
that I was about to present to them, if they
used an egg that had been specially prepared
beforehand. To prove that I had not resorted
to any such subterfuge, I had a dish of eggs,
and I was willing to take any one of the eggs
chosen by the audience and break it, to show
that it was simply an ordinary egg. I would
then take another egg chosen by the audience and
perform my trick with it. I hoped that in this
way I should convince everyone that my tricks
were done independently of any mechanical aid.

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167

I took the dish of eggs down to the audience,

and two eggs were chosen. One was brown,
the other was white. I was commanded to break
the brown one; but when I returned to the
stage, I made a pretence of beginning to break
the white one. I was stopped-as I had ex
pected I should bewith a shout of: No,
no; break the brown one ! I made a pretence
of taxing the audience with having changed their
mind, and the longer I hesitated about breaking
the brown egg, the more they insisted that they
wished to see the interior of that particular egg.
Very well, I said at lastand by this time
the audience had quite convinced themselves that
the brown egg was a trick egg I will break
the brown egg ; but I may tell you that you
have added considerably to the difficulty of the
trick. With that I tapped the brown egg on
a plate. The audience at the back of the hall
stood up ; those in the front chuckled to them
selves at the idea of having puzzled the conjurer.
Go on! shouted a small boy at the back
of the hall, after I had tapped the egg twice
on the plate, and nothing had happened. Go
on! Break it! It aint an egg at all. You
see, its going up bis sleeve directly.
(This is the popular explanation of every
trick that is performed. Once, after I had been
doing some tricks with my sleeves rolled up,

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Woes of a Wizard

I heard a lady say : Yes, thats all very well;

but anyone could see that those were not his
real arms. Those were merely cases over his
arms, and in those cases were little trap-doors.)
Being exhorted by the ruder portion of the
audience to do the trick if I could, I tapped
the brown egg on the plate for the third time.
I knew that I had cracked the shell; but the
inward parts of the egg remained intact. I
suggested to the audience that the egg was bad,
and that therefore it would be better left whole.
The reply was that the egg was not an egg at
all.
Then, I said, perhaps you would not
mind breaking it. I have no wish to release a
bad egg in the room.
Then they jeered at me, and hands were
stretched out for the brown egg,
See he doesn't change it, cried one man.
Ill watch him, shouted another. The brown
egg fell into the hands of a middle-aged spinster,
who banged it on the handle of her umbrella, and
then declared it to be perfectly goodbut
hard-boiled !
I assured the audience that there had been
a mistake, and that I had not known of the state
of the egg. It was no use ; I had lost the con
fidence of my audience. I went to the dish for
another egg, hut that too was hard-boiled ; and

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169

we subsequently discovered that all the eggs

had been treated in that way. It appears that
a certain lady, who was very much interested
in my appearance as a conjurer, thought she
would assist me in some little way. She had
boiled the eggs hard because, she had argued
to herself, that if by any chance I dropped a
raw egg in full view of the audience, I should
be laughed at! Not only was that lady the
innocent cause of the afternoons performance
failing hopelessly, but she was also the means
of my losing what little reputation I had gained
for myself in our town. It was in vain that I
told the audience that I had not known that
the eggs were hard-boiled, and that I could
have done the trick with eggs in any state
in fact, with no eggs at all! They would not
believe me ; and to this day some of the people
who were present, have an idea that if you
want to learn how to take a bunch of ribbons
and a flag out of an egg, you have to begin
by boiling the egg hard. They do not know
how you go on after that ; but they know that
that is the first part of the secret.
I mentioned that I held the two eggs up
before the audience, and invited them to tell
me which one they wished me to break. Shall
I let out a little secret, and tell you that when
a conjurer requests his audience to choose

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Woes of a Wizard

between one of two articles, he never really

allows them to make any such choice ? You
will say: Oh! but we have seen conjurers who
havent attempted to influence us in any way,
when they have asked us to choose something.
Well, this chapter is about sells, and so I
may tell you that you have been sold. This is
what the conjurer does. We will suppose that
he wants to use one particular card out ofsay
six cards, but in order to make the trick
appear extremely difficult, he wishes to invite the
audience to say which particular card he shall
use in the trick. The conjurer may perhaps
hold the cards up fanwise before the audience,
and ask them to choose three. If the card he
wishes to use is among those three cards, he
will throw the other three cards away, and will
then ask the audience to choose two cards. If
the card he wants in the trick is one of those
two cards, he throws the third card away, and
once more asks the audience to choose one of
the two cards. If they decide upon the card
he wants himself, he puts the other card down ;
but if their taste does not coincide with his,
then he discards the card they choose, and
performs the trick with the one cardhis own
cardwhich he still holds in his hand.
You will see that, in any case, the audience is
sold, and that the conjurer performs the trick

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171

with his own particular card. Perhaps you will

remember this the next time that a conjurer
asks you to choose a card. It may interest
you to know that I never make use of the
conjurers choice when I am doing a card trick.
I have a much simpler method of arriving at
the desired result.
A friend of mine has just come in. He has
been kind enough to say that I might as well
make the chapter on Sells very short ; because
he thinks that any book written by me will
be, in itself, quite enough of a sell for most
people. I do hope you will not agree with him.
One of the worst sells 1 ever had was in con
nection with one of my first engagements. I
received a letter from a man asking me to give
a performance at a certain hall in Notting Hill.
He said he would be glad if I would call on him
that night and make the necessary arrangements.
I went to the address on the letter, but could not
find the place anywhere. Then I asked a police
man to direct me to the hall, and the policeman
told me that there was no hall of that name in
Notting Hill, or anywhere near Notting Hill.
I had spent three weary hours in tramping
about London, before I discovered that the letter
offering me an engagement was a hoax. I sub
sequently discovered that the letter had been sent
by another conjurer, who was giving a new and

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Woes of a Wizard

very wonderful performance elsewhere, on the

same evening. He had evidently thought that
I should want to see his big trick, and that the
best thing he could do was to prevent me from
seeing itlest I should discover the secret and
do the same thing myself. I suppose that in one
respect I may regard that hoax as a compliment ;
but at the time, being very poor and very tired
and very hungry, I made a note of it, and added
it to my collection of woes.

CHAPTER XV

SOME COMPENSATIONS

between some of the woes described in

IN previous
chapters have been intervals of

joy ; occasions when I have felt somewhat com

pensated for the troubles I had brought upon
myself by my generous, disinterested efforts to
entertain other people, and earn my living at
one and the same time. For instance, there
have been times when I have been praised for
what I have done (nothis is not a work of
the imagination), and sometimes the praise has
been of the best possible kindnot the usual
conventional compliment.
I remember once I was engaged to appear in
an old-fashioned country house. My perform
ance had to be given in the large hall, which
had a small gallery running round three sides
of it. I had a fairly appreciative audience, but
I thought that some of the children were not so
interested as children usually are in a conjuring
entertainment. Later on in the evening I
173

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Woes of a Wizard

noticed that some of the small packets of

toys, which I had produced in the course of
my performance and showered among the
children, had not been opened. I asked one
of the children why she was not playing with
her toys, and her mother answered for her.
She said :
Please don't take any notice of her, Mr.
Devant. The fact is, your entertainment (my
modesty compels me to omit the adjective the
lady put in between your and entertainment)
was too good for them. We have often had
conjurers before, and my naughty children and
their friends have always been in the gallery
of the hallwhere they were to-nightand
have always seen how the conjurers have done
their tricks. They did not see how any of
yours were done, and so they are a little disap
pointed. Your performance was quite too-------------
(You would say that I was conceited if I wrote
it.)
Does it not strike you that the sulkiness
of those children was a very sincere compliment ?
Of course they could not have been very nice
children, or they would have been so entertained
by my patter that they would have forgotten
their disappointment in not finding out how
the tricks were done ; but still their praisein
the form of sulkswas genuine,

Some Compensations

175

Some people have an idea that a conjurer

is a kind of machine-man, who can be sent to
a houseespecially in the Christmas holidays
and ordered to turn his machinery on at any
given moment. I like to lie back sometimes
and think that I have occasionally been able to
disabuse some people of that idea,
I was once engaged to go to a bouse which
I was informed was close to a station. At that
time I was appearing twice a day at Messrs.
Maskelyne and Cookes entertainment at the
Egyptian Hall, and so I told the people, who
wished me to perform at their house, that
I could not come unless I could be sure of
getting back to the Egyptian Hall at eight
oclock in the evening. They informed me
that that could easily be managed as their house
was not a five minutes drive from the station.
When I arrived at the station, I found that
the house to which I was engaged to go could
not be reached in less than three quarters of
an hour. The consequence was that when
I arrived at the house I had time for only one
trick. The people were not at all pleased when
I told them that I should have to go back to
London then ; they seemed to have had an
idea that, having got me there, they would
be able to keep me for the remainder of the
evening. A few days afterwards I received

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Woes of a Wizard

a letter from the man who had engaged me

to say that, as I had not given them an hours
performance, he would not pay my fee. I replied
that I would refer the matter to my solicitor,
and in the course of the next week I received
my cheque.
On another occasion I was engaged to appear
at a private party at eight oclock in the evening.
When I arrived at the house, I was asked to
wait in the servants hall. I sent up word to say
that I was there, and that I was ready to give
the entertainment. The message came back
to the effect that the people, before whom I
was to perform, could not see me then as they
were just finishing dinner, and would not be ready
for me for another hour or so. I sent back a
message to say that I had been engaged from
eight to nine oclock, and that I could not wait
after that time. The reply came back that I
was to wait until I was sent for.
I did not reply at once to this, but I began
to give my entertainment in the servants hall,
and a more appreciative audience I never had.
My tricks were very successful, and I was pressed
to give some encores. At nine oclock I received
a message from upstairs to say that the
company were all in the drawing-room and
waiting for me to come and do some conjuring
tricks. I sent back a replythe butler was

Some Compensations

177

very loth to take it, but there was no way out

of the difficultyto say that I had already
given my performance according to the arrange
ment, and that I was just leaving the house.
Here again I had some little difficulty in getting
my fee, and had to threaten legal proceedings
before I received it.
I should like to add that the really good
peoplethe people who are in society and not
in what a clever writer has called semi-society"
have always been most kind and considerate to
me, and it has been a real pleasure to me to
perform before them and their children. It is
only the rich nobodies who try to act unfairly ;
and I am glad to think that in such cases I
have been able to obtain the assistance of the
law, and have thus made them keep to their
word.
If I talk much more like this you will think
that I am getting too serious. Let me tell you
of a few occasions when conjuring has helped
me to have a little amusement for myself.
Everyone will remember Mr. Maskelynes
box-trick case. During the hearing of the action,
I was called as a witness to show that a trick
can be performed in several different ways, and
yet always with the same effect to the audience.
To illustrate my evidence I began to conjure
while I was in the witness-box. I vanished a
I2

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Woes of a Wizard

half-crown in three or four different ways, and

finally offered to pass it invisibly into the judges
wig. I have since been informed that I was
getting very dangerously near to contempt of
court in suggesting such a thing ; but at the
time I seemed to be in no danger. As a matter
of fact, and at the risk of being considered
conceited, I may say that his lordship appeared
to be very interested and amused at my per
formance.
Many years ago I was performing in a small
town in which I was a complete stranger. The
inhabitants of that town were very sleepy;
in fact, they were so drowsy that they did not
really appreciate the opportunity they had for
seeing me. The consequence of this slackness
on the part of the townspeople, was that business
was very bad. I sought an opportunity for a
little advertisement, and while walking about
and thinking of a good plan to call attention
to my entertainment to be given that evening,
I saw something which I had never seen before.
This strange sight was observed by me in
a fishmongers shop, and I was so struck by it
that I stood in silent amazement before the shop,
A few passers-by stopped to see what was holding
my attention, and in the course of a few minutes
quite a respectable crowd was standing in front
of that shop. Presently it occurred to one of them

Some Compensations

179

to ask another what they were all looking at.

The question was put to me.
Dont you see that rabbit hanging up there?
I replied. It does seem a shame to hang it up
before its quite dead, doesnt it ?
Which one ?
The last but one on that row. Don't you see
its legs moving ? "
At first the people who could not sec the
rabbits legs jeered at the suggestion that the
rabbit was not dead; but when the people in
the front row of the crowd stood on one side
they all agreed that the poor rabbit was half alive,
and that the man who had hung it up there
ought to be hung in the same position himself.
By this time the fishmonger was getting a little
curious to find out what everyone was looking at
in his shop.
A dear old lady, who had worked her way to
the front of the crowd, came forward, and, em
phasising her words by brandishing her umbrella
in the fishmongers face, she told him that it
was a scandalous shame that he should treat
animals in that way. She said that it was quite
bad enough to boil lobsters alive, and she thought
that ought to be stopped; but to hang up a
rabbit while it was only half dead was a little
too much, and she would report the matter to the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

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Woes of a Wizard

The fishmonger protested that the rabbit was

quite dead ; he said that he knew it could not
be alive, because he had shot that particular rabbit
himself.
Then," said the old lady triumphantly, you
didnt kill it properly.
It was then my turn to put in a word, and I
assured the fishmonger that the lady was quite
right, and that the rabbit was certainly not quite
dead. I added that no doubt there had been a
mistake for which he was not entirely to blame.
The fishmonger who, by this time, seemed to be
getting a little dazed at the sight of the angry
crowd outside his shop, turned to me and said :
Which rabbit are they all talking about? I'll
soon show you if its dead or not.
Can't you see? I said, going into the shop
and reaching the rabbit down ; why, this one
of course. Its quite alive nowalive and
kicking!
Well, I'm blowed! said the fishmonger.
Herelet me put it out of its misery."
Its a pity to do that, I said. Im going
to try and save its life, and keep it here as a
pet for my little boy.
Well, youll pay for it ? said the fish
monger.
Certainly, I replied. How much ?
Two and sixpence.

Some Compensations

181

No, I said ; thats too much. Ill tell

you what I'll do. Ill give you a dead rabbit and
sixpence for it."
By this time a large crowd of people were
tumbling over each other in their efforts to see
what was going on inside the shop. The old
lady, who had insisted that the fishmonger ought
to be ashamed of himself for being so cruel to
a rabbit, was urging me to put it out of its
misery.
Perhaps Id better kill it, after all, I said,
turning to the fishmonger.
Two boys in the crowd became delirious
in their joy at the prospect of seeing this
butchery.
Dont let me see you, said the old lady.
The poor thing shall not suffer, I said.
Look !
With that I struck at the rabbit, and then
held up my arms wide apart. In one hand I
held a live rabbit ; in the other the dead one.
Why, its alive after all, said the people
who noticed only the live rabbit.
Go on! cried the crowd nearest to the
dead rabbit. Anybody can see its dead right
enough.
Then the crowd saw the two rabbits, and I
took that opportunity to tell them that they
had been the victims of a little harmless deception,

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Woes of a Wizard

and that if they wished to see some other things

quite as interesting, they should all come to
my entertainment that evening. I added the
information that the rabbit which they thought
was half alive was really quite dead, for I had
no wish to make a bad friend of the fishmonger.
He was a little inclined to resent the use I had
made of him and his shop ; but he seemed to
regard the incident from my point of view after
I had pressed him to accept two front seats
for my performance. The last time I saw
him he told me that the old lady, who assisted
me to carry out my scheme, persists to this
day in believing that the rabbit which she saw
hanging up in the shop was really alive.
In that case it will be seen that my conjuring
compensated me for being grievously hard up.
I remember another and a very different
occasion when I felt unusually glad that I was
a conjurer. I had been performing in a town
where there was a large charity school, and
the children had been invited to one of the
matinee performances. As they were leaving
I was able to have a chat with the matron of
the school, who told me that all the children in
the school had been there except one little girl
who was ill in the hospital.
I was told that this little girl had been very
disappointed at not being able to come to see

Some Compensations

183

the performance, and so I asked permission to

be allowed to go and see her in the morning.
She was delighted to see me, and I did conjuring
tricks for an hour while she sat up in her little
bed. I shall not soon forget her pretty round
eyes, which seemed to open wider and wider
with astonishment at the end of each trick, or
the merry little laugh of delight she gave when
I discovered a large bunch of violets in her
handkerchief.
That performance nearly ended sadly, because
the little girl found a very small doll in the
middle of the bunch of violets, and she
was so surprised and pleased that she hardly
knew whether to laugh or to cry. I believe she
tried to do both at once, and then the nurse
came and suggested that the patient should
have a rest. But before I left the little girl
put out her hand to shake hands with me and
tried to say Thank you, but could not get
beyond the first word. And so I left her, with
the violets in one hand and the doll in the
other, and tears of joy glistening in her eyes.
You see, conjuring has its compensations.

Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

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BY

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