A FIREWORKS FIRE
Joe Strong smiled at the puzzled looks on the faces of his chums. They
were eagerly watching him now, as if asking what he would do next.
“No, I can’t do anything more just now,” he said in answer to the
implied request. “I can’t produce a guinea pig from Tom’s ear, nor a
bowl of gold fish from under my shirt; though I might if I were loaded
for those tricks.”
“Loaded?” asked Charlie, curiously.
“Yes, that is what a magician calls it when he comes out on the stage,
with the secret pockets of his dress suit filled with the things he
needs for tricks. He may ‘load’ himself with a bowl of gold fish or a
couple of rabbits.”
“Alive?” asked Henry.
“Sure! Wasn’t the rabbit alive Professor Rosello took out of dad’s hat
last night?” asked Tom.
“How did he do that?” Charlie interrogated “Can you tell us, Joe?”
“Yes, I can, but——”
“Say, I’d rather have him tell us how he did this trick with the
figures,” interrupted Harry. “Go on, Joe.”
“Well, it’s really very simple when you know,” said Joe. “You see the
sum I made appear on the stone wasn’t the sum of the numbers you three
fellows wrote down.”
“It wasn’t?” cried Tom, surprised.
“No,” went on Joe Strong, with a twinkle in his bright eyes. “I let
Harry, Charlie and Henry each set down four figures on a piece of paper.
Then I handed a piece of paper to Tom to add up the sum, only it didn’t
happen to be the same piece that you three fellows used,” and Joe
laughed.
“I just substituted one of my own,” resumed the boy wizard. “I had it in
my pocket all ready, for I thought maybe I’d get a chance to play this
trick to-day. I wadded up in a little ball the paper with the figures
you boys set down, and slipped Tom one of my own. Of course I knew what
my numbers were going to add up to—I had put down the figures myself, so
I ought to know. They were like this:”
4,004
2,821
3,642
—————
Joe showed the little sum, rapidly scribbling it on another piece of
paper.
“Those figures add up to ten thousand four hundred and sixty-seven,” he
resumed, “and of course I knew that before Tom announced the sum. And I
knew I was safe in letting Tom have the list of figures I wrote, for he
had not seen those you fellows had set down. I made my set of figures
look as though a different person had set down each one, and Tom wasn’t
familiar enough with you boys’ way of making figures to detect the
change.
“Then, when I took the piece of paper from him, I burned that and with
it the one that Charlie, Henry and Harry had written their figures on,
so there wouldn’t be any chance of being found out later.”
“But how did you get the sum, ten thousand four hundred and sixty-seven,
on the piece of stone?” asked Charlie. “You didn’t touch that after you
took the paper from Tom, I can vouch for that.”
“No, I didn’t touch it,” affirmed Joe.
“Then how did the figures get on? There must have been some magic about
that.”
“It’s very simple when you know how,” laughed Joe. “When I was talking
here to you fellows, I just put the sum, ten thousand four hundred and
sixty-seven on the flat side of the stone with a pencil. Then I turned
it over and left it lying on the ground until I wanted it. Then it was
easy enough for me to pick it up, cover it with a handkerchief and hand
it to Charlie to hold. The sum was there on it all the while, and when
Tom announced what my three figures added up to, a result that I, of
course, knew beforehand, I simply had Charlie lift the handkerchief,
and—there you were!”
For a moment there was silence among the boys. Then they burst out with:
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!”
“As easy as that!”
“It’s a wonder we didn’t think of that!”
“Two papers—one with our numbers on, and one with his!”
“That’s the whole secret,” explained Joe. “That is, all but the stone.
Of course if I had had a slate to use that would have been a little
different.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” observed Charlie. “That professor last
night passed the slate around for inspection, and there wasn’t any
number written on it.”
“Oh, yes there was,” said Joe with a smile. “Only you didn’t see it. It
was a trick slate. On one side, covered by a piece of black stiff paper,
which looked almost like the slate, was the number written in chalk—a
number that was the sum of three figures previously known to the
professor, and on the piece of paper he gave out to be added up.
“When he took back the slate, after having passed it around for
inspection, he walked up on to the stage and quietly slipped out the
piece of black paper. That left the chalk sum exposed. He could either
do that before he covered the slate with the handkerchief and gave it to
some one to hold, or afterward, as he took it from the person and raised
the handkerchief covering. In his case he did it before, since he let
the person holding the slate lift the handkerchief.”
“Then the number was there all the while!” cried Tom.
“Yes.”
“And if the one who held the slate had lifted the handkerchief it would
have been seen?”
“Yes. And for that reason it’s safer to lay the slate on a table or on
the stage in plain sight, but where no one can inspect it. Then the
magician can ask some one to come up and lift the handkerchief, so it
can’t be said he wrote the number down himself. That’s all there is to
it.”
“Say, it does sound easy now,” commented Charlie. “But how did you ever
figure it out, Joe?”
“Yes, you surely did the trick smoothly!” was Tom’s compliment.
“Oh, I’ve studied it a little,” admitted Joe, modestly. “It needs a
little practice in ‘palming,’ that is in holding two or more things in
your hand without letting the audience suspect you have them; or in
changing one thing for another by sleight-of-hand, as I changed the
papers. You see it’s very easy—like this.”
He picked up a small stone, held it on the back of his left hand, passed
his right quickly over it and closed both fists.
“In which hand is the stone now?” he asked.
“There,” said Tom, indicating the right fist.
“No, there,” said Charlie, quickly, touching the left.
“Neither one, it’s there on Henry’s knee,” announced Joe with a laugh,
and so it was, the same stone, for it was peculiarly marked.
“How did you do it?” cried Henry, in frank amazement.
“Oh, just by making the action of my hands quicker than your eyes,” was
the answer. “I made a couple of false motions, and you followed them
with your eyes instead of watching the stone. That’s how I managed to
substitute the paper with my figures on for the one Tom thought you boys
had prepared. It’s very simple.”
“Yes, to hear you tell it,” came from Henry. “But say, Joe, how did the
professor do that trick with the live rabbit? I was close to him when he
came down off the platform, and I couldn’t see where he had the bunny.
And yet, in plain view, he pulled it out of somebody’s inside coat
pocket. How in the world did he do it?”
“It was easy—for him,” Joe stated. “When he finished the hat and egg
trick he went behind the scenes for a second and slipped the live rabbit
in a secret pocket in his coat.
“After some hocus-pocus work, and a lot of ‘patter,’ or talk made up to
keep you from watching him too sharply, he went close to the man from
whose pocket he was going to produce the rabbit. He held the lapel of
the man’s coat close against his own for a second, and with his other
hand he reached in the secret pocket and got hold of the rabbit’s ears.
Then, when he lifted the bunny up, it looked just as if the animal came
out of the man’s pocket, but, all the while, it came from the
professor’s.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Tom. “It all sounds very easy.”
“It is, and again it isn’t,” explained Joe. “It takes lots of practice,
and one’s got to have his nerve with him all the while, to know how to
act in case anything goes wrong.”
“Then _you_ ought to be a good wizard,” declared Henry, “for you sure
have nerve!”
“That’s right,” added Harry Martin. “But say now, Joe, in that trick
where the professor took——”
Harry did not finish his sentence. His words were cut short by an
explosion which came from a group of buildings located near a railroad
siding about a quarter of a mile away. Following the explosion a cloud
of black smoke billowed up to the sky.
“Look, fellows!” cried Tom. “It’s the fireworks factory!”
“It’s on fire!” added Henry.
“It’s blown up!” yelled Charlie.
“Come on, boys! Come on!” shouted Joe, and he led the way toward the
cloud of smoke, which was now pierced here and there by darting tongues
of fire. As the boys rushed onward there came other and smaller
explosions, like the popping of guns.