THE CIRCUS
And now for the explanation of the egg trick. It is so simple that any
of you may do it at home, with just an ordinary egg, a fruit jar and
some salt. Don’t forget the salt.
You have all heard the story, told to children, about putting salt on a
bird’s tail in order to tame it. Well, a fresh egg that one wishes to
make float half-way submerged in a jar of water, must be treated in the
same way. It must be salted.
Just as Joe said, a fresh egg will sink in water. But it will float in
strong brine, or salt water, the reason being that salt water is denser,
and has a greater specific gravity, than fresh water.
But the trick lies in combining fresh and salt water so that the egg
will sink only half-way.
Make a strong brine solution by dissolving common table salt in water.
It may be necessary to experiment a little before getting the solution
just the right strength. Fill a glass fruit jar, or any jar with a wide
opening, half full of the brine. Now, with a funnel, pour fresh water in
on top of the salt water. Be careful not to let the two kinds of water
mix. The salt water, being heavier, will be on the bottom of the jar,
and the fresh, being lighter, on top. If you do it carefully enough,
pouring in a little fresh water at a time, you will have, as Joe had, a
jar with two layers of different kinds of water—one salt, the other
fresh. The audience, of course, can not see this, as they could if you
had two differently colored fluids, for the salt and fresh water are of
the same color.
When Joe put the egg in the water he lowered it carefully, so as not to
disturb the two water layers. The egg sank through the strata of fresh
water, but when it came to the layer of dense, salt water, it would not
sink in that, and came to a stop, half-way down, just as Joe, who knew
at what point this would occur, uttered the command to stop.
And when Joe pretended, to dissolve the “spell,” he merely, with his
wand, stirred together the fresh and salt water. This made a mixture of
salt water, but it was not dense, or heavy, enough to support the egg,
which of course sank to the bottom.
And, as the waters were well mixed when Joe let the young man try the
experiment, of course the latter could not make the egg float as the boy
wizard had done.
“That was a good trick, Joe,” was the professor’s compliment when Joe
came off the stage. “In fact I think the simpler the trick is, the
better, but there are very few that can be worked with so little
apparatus as your egg experiment. We’ll keep that on our list.”
Joe had told his employer about the news brought by Harry, to the effect
that our hero was accused of robbery by his foster-parent.
“What are you going to do about it, Joe?” asked the professor.
“I don’t see that I can do anything. I didn’t take a dollar of his
money, or Mrs. Blackford’s either, nor did I touch the valuable papers.
It’s all a mistake, but I’m not going back there to tell him so. I sent
word by Harry. If he won’t believe him, he won’t believe me.”
“No, perhaps not. And, as you say, you can’t go back there just to
convince your foster-father. You don’t think, do you, that he will make
trouble for you?”
“I don’t imagine so.”
When Joe said this he knew nothing of the warrant having been sworn out
for his arrest. Harry had not told his chum of this detail.
“Then I don’t see that you need do anything,” said Mr. Crabb. “I,
myself, don’t believe the accusation against you. And until you are put
to some real trouble over it you may as well ignore it. We’ll just go on
as usual. You are doing well, and our show is succeeding better than I
hoped for. I am glad you came to me.”
Joe was grateful for this trust, and resolved to do his best in his
future work. He worked up several new and simple tricks, many of them,
such as dancing cards, the nodding skull and others, being adaptations
from other stage illusions.
You have, most of you, perhaps, seen a magician suspend a card,
apparently in mid-air, and cause it to go up or down as some one in the
audience requests. Sometimes a metal ball on a rod is used. These tricks
are worked by means of a black thread which is attached to the card or
ball and is pulled by a confederate behind the scenes.
Indeed, the black silk thread has been called the magician’s best
friend. It is absolutely invisible on the lighted stage against the
proper background, and the right kind is strong enough to lift
considerable weight.
A card chosen from the pack is made to rise or fall as follows: the
magician gets possession of the card selected by some one in the
audience, either by keeping his finger in the place in the pack into
which it is thrust, or by “forcing” a certain card on the person in the
audience. The performer knows what card he is going to “force” and,
later, can readily pick it out of the pack as he shuffles it. To “force”
a card, the operator rapidly spreads out a pack of cards, face down, in
front of a person, and quickly thrusts one card out farther than the
others, literally “forcing” it into the hand. It is a predetermined
card, but not one in a hundred realizes that.
At any rate, having the card, the performer goes back to the stage and
adroitly contrives to fasten the card to the unseen black silk thread
with a tiny bit of beeswax. Then, with the card apparently suspended in
mid-air, but in reality hung by an unseen thread, which runs through
screw-eyes on the stage floor, the card is made to go up or down or stop
midway, just as the audience calls for, by the pulling of the thread by
the assistant behind the scenes. When the trick is over the performer
slyly takes the card off the pellet of wax, no trace of which shows, and
passes the card around for examination. Of course it is an ordinary
card. The trick was all in the string.
Joe made a variation of that trick by using a round-bottomed little
papier-maché figure, bought in a toy store. There was no trick about the
figure. It was one of those which can not be made to lie down, but
continually bob up, because of a weight of lead in the rounded bottom.
Joe laid a glass shelf across the backs of two chairs, and after passing
the little round-bottomed figure about for inspection, returned with it
to the stage, placing it on the glass shelf.
“This little figure, by bowing to the right or to the left, will now
answer questions without assistance from me,” Joe announced. “A bow to
the left will mean ‘no,’ and a nod to the right will mean ‘yes.’ Or you
may have it the other way if you like. Which shall it be?”
The choice being thus left to the audience it seems impossible that
there can be any prearrangement.
“Right bow for ‘no,’” some one called.
“Very well,” agreed Joe, smiling. “It’s all the same to me. A bow to the
right will stand for ‘no,’ and the nod to the opposite direction will
mean ‘yes.’”
All this while the little figure rested on the glass shelf. Not a bit of
mechanism was to be observed, and Joe walked down from the stage and
stood in the audience after placing the figure on the glass.
“Now we will ask questions,” announced the young performer. “Is the lady
on my right married?”
“No,” nodded the figure.
“Is she willing to be?” he went on, amid laughter, while the young lady
blushed.
“Yes,” nodded the figure, amid still heartier laughter.
Joe asked many other questions, easily answered by no or yes. He did not
take the trouble to find out if the answers were correct. The questions
followed one another quickly, and the audience was interested in noting
the movements of the figure, with no one on the stage, with Joe far away
from it, and with nothing but a plain glass shelf on which the figure
rested.
When Joe had caused enough fun and mystification with this trick, he
walked back to the stage, picked up the figure and tossed it to a little
boy in a front seat.
“Take it home with you, youngster,” he said. “See if you can make it
behave as I did.”
Several interested ones around the boy examined the figure. There was no
deception about it, and the giving of it away proved this. In fact Joe
found that a good climax to the trick.
And now—how was it done?
Beforehand two black threads were passed from behind the scenes up
through the rounds of the chairs, over the backs and up on the glass
shelf, where they met in the middle, each thread ending in a little
pellet of wax. When Joe apparently carelessly placed the figure on the
glass shelf he fastened one of the waxed ends of thread to either side
of the half-rounded bottom.
He then went entirely away from the stage, and all that remained was for
the assistant behind the scenes to pull one thread to make the figure
bow to the right, and another to cause it to nod to the left. Of course
the assistant heard all that was said, and could govern himself
according to the choice of the audience. It was an effective trick, and
beautifully simple. You might even try it yourself, but be sure the
black threads do not show. It is for this reason that most magicians
have dark draperies for a stage background.
“Where do we go next?” asked Joe of the professor the night after he had
first introduced his magic figure trick, which had gone so well with the
audience.
“Hillsburg is the next town, and we ought to make quite some money
there, Joe.”
“You deserve more money,” proceeded Mr. Crabb, “and I am going to give
it to you. You are certainly a valuable addition to my show, and in time
you will be able to carry on a whole performance yourself. You still
have something to learn in palming, in making substitutions, and in
manipulating cards. But that takes practice and time. I have great hopes
of you.”
But alas for the hopes of doing a good business in Hillsburg! When they
reached that town, they found that a circus was playing there on the
same date as Professor Rosello’s show.
“No use trying to compete with a circus,” observed the professor, as he
heard the news at the small hotel where they put up. “We’ll just wait
over a couple of days, Joe, and perhaps we can think up some new tricks
in the meanwhile. A rest will do us no harm. I’ll just cancel to-day’s
engagement here, and put the show on two nights later. By that time we
can get a crowd.”
“Then you haven’t anything for me to do?”
“No, Joe.”
“I guess, then, I’ll go out and see them get ready for the circus. I may
take in the show, too.”
“Please yourself, Joe,” said the professor, as his young helper went
out. “I didn’t think he could resist the attraction of the sawdust rings
of a circus,” he murmured to himself with a smile.