A SENSATIONAL DIVE
Striking a match, Joe ignited two candles that stood on a little table
at one side of his stage. On the other side his assistants were setting
up the apparatus he intended to use in his more elaborate experiments.
"You observe that the trick has not yet begun," said Joe, with a laugh,
as he blew out the match. "In other words, I am lighting these candles
in the ordinary way--just as any one of you would do it, if he needed
to. In a moment I will show you how to light the candles in case one is
accidentally blown out and you have no match."
Allowing both candles to burn up well, with clear, bright flames, Joe
suddenly blew out one.
"Now," he said, "I will show you how to carry fire in your hands from
the lighted to the unlighted candle. Watch me closely!"
Joe cupped his hands around the lighted candle, seeming to take the
flame up in his fingers. When he removed his hands, which he still held
in cup, or globular, shape, the second candle had been extinguished.
Both were now out.
"You will notice that I am carrying the flame in my hands from one
candle to the other," said Joe, in a loud voice, as he walked across the
stage.
For an instant he spread his hands, cup fashion, around the candle he
had first blown out. Suddenly he withdrew his hands, holding them wide
apart and in full view of the audience, and, lo! the unlighted candle
was glowing brightly.
There was a moment of silence, and then the applause broke forth. Joe
bowed and said:
"That is how to carry fire in your hands. But please don't any of you
try it unless you get the directions from me."
"Tell us how to do it!" piped up a small boy.
"Come and see me after the show!" laughed Joe.
And, while on this subject, it might be well to explain how Joe did the
trick. It is very simple, but it takes practice, and an amateur may
easily be fatally burned in the attempt, simple as it is.
Joe lighted the candles in the usual way, with a match, as already
explained. There was no trick about this, nor about blowing out one. But
immediately after that the trick started. Joe placed a little piece of
waxed paper between the first and second fingers of his left hand as
soon as he had blown out the first candle. This paper was a slender
strip, and could not be seen by the audience.
When he cupped his hands around the remaining lighted candle Joe
ignited this waxed strip, taking care to work it away from his palms and
fingers. It burned with a tiny flame and with scarcely any heat in the
middle of the hollow cup formed by his hands.
As soon as he had ignited the paper Joe, by pressing the lower edges of
his palms against the blazing wick of the candle, extinguished it. This
had the same effect as though he had "pinched" out the flame with finger
and thumb, as many country persons put out, or "snuff," candles
to-day--for candles are still much used in some places.
Now we have Joe with a little blazing taper concealed in his cupped
hands, advancing to the candle he first blew out. He placed his hands
around this, lighted the wick from the taper, which he at once crushed
between his fingers, and the trick was done.
The candle was lighted, the remains of the little taper were concealed
between Joe's fingers, and it looked as though he had really carried
fire in his hands. The quickness with which he pinched out the candle
flame, and also smothered the taper after he had used it, prevented him
from being burned in the slightest. But it is best for a boy unpracticed
and without the dexterity of a professional prestidigitator not to
undertake to play with fire.
Joe Strong believed in doing his tricks and acts artistically and
elaborately. He had watched other performers "dress their act," and he
had often improved on what even stage veterans had done. His
apprenticeship had been a stern but good one.
And now he was going to introduce something novel in his fire-eating
tricks, but he was also going to add to that. He had read considerable
of late about the fire-eating tricks of the old "magicians" and had
delved into many curious old books. Now he was going to give his
audience some of this information.
"There is a trick in everything," said Joe, as he faced his audience in
readiness for the fire-eating act. "If I told you that I actually
swallowed blazing fire, any physician would know that I was not telling
the truth. I do not really eat the fire. I only seem to do so. But if in
doing so I can deceive you into thinking I do, and you are thrilled and
amused, you get your money's worth, I earn mine, and we are all
satisfied. So don't be alarmed by what you see.
"The resistance of the human body to heat is greater than many persons
suppose," said Joe. "And there is a vast difference between wet heat and
dry heat. Water, above one hundred and fifty degrees, would be
unbearable. It would really burn you badly. Water, as you know, boils at
two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit. But before this point is
reached it is capable of ending life.
"Dry heat, however, is different. Men have frequently borne without
permanent discomfort dry heat up to three hundred degrees. This heat is
often reached in the drying rooms of oilcloth and oiled silk factories.
"Now the fire I handle is dry heat. I would no more think of pouring
boiling water over my hands than I would of taking poison. And yet I
will show you that I can thrust my hand into a blazing fire and suffer
no harm.
"In an old book I read that to enable one to thrust one's hands into the
fire all you had to do was to anoint them with a mixture of _bol
armenian_, quicksilver, camphor and spirits of wine. I should prefer to
leave that mixture alone, though in the book it is said that if one puts
that mixture on his hands he may handle boiling lead.
"Perhaps some ancient magician did this, but I think he depended more on
water than on anything else. If your hands are wet there is formed on
them a film of moisture which, for a moment, will enable you to
withstand high degrees of dry heat.
"In another old book I read that if one prepared himself with 'liquid
stortax,' which is juice from a certain tree growing in Italy, he could
enter fire, bathe in fire, put a burning coal on his tongue, and even
swallow fire.
"Now I am not going to let you into all my secrets. You shall see--what
you shall see!" concluded Joe.
As intimated before, the method Joe Strong used is not going to be
printed here. You have been given some genuine ancient formulae, safe in
the knowledge that some of the ingredients can not be obtained. And the
modern substitutes are not going to be told. Enough to say that Joe had
"prepared himself."
The young magician looked to see that all was in readiness. Perceiving
that it was, he retired for a moment to a cabinet set up on the stage,
and when he came out he was ready for his tricks.
Joe advanced to what seemed to be an elaborate candelabra in which seven
tapers were set. He stood in front of this a moment, and then he
announced:
"Having lived on a fire diet so long I have a bit to spare. I will light
these candles without using a match."
He waved his hand over the candelabra. Sparks were seen to shoot from
his finger tips, and in an instant the seven lights were glowing. That
was an electrical trick. In reality the candles were gas jets, made to
look like wax tapers, and Joe lighted them from an electric current
produced by a dry battery he carried on his person.
He then proceeded to his main trick. He picked up a plate. It seemed to
contain pieces of bread. Joe touched the edge of the plate to a flame
of one of the candles. In an instant the plate was ablaze, and Joe
calmly began putting the blazing stuff on it into his mouth.
Cube after cube of the blazing "bread" he lifted up on a fork and thrust
between his lips. And he seemed to enjoy the "eating" of it.
The audience was spellbound. Every one's eyes were on Joe Strong doing
his fire-eating trick.
The plate was empty. Joe looked about as though for something else hot
to eat. He caught up an article from a table. Holding it to the flame of
a candle, it was at once ablaze.
And then, with a thrilling cry, Joe Strong leaped from the stage, his
two hands, held high above his head, seeming to be enveloped in a mass
of fire. And with this fire held over him, he ran toward the tank in
which Benny Turton did his "human fish" act.
The next instant Joe Strong, apparently ablaze all over, dived into the
tank.