“I’VE GOT YOU!”
Joe had been reading a letter when Professor Rosello came in with the
strange news about the two men. The letter was from Benny Turton, the
“human fish,” of Sampson Brothers’ Circus, and was in response to a
souvenir postcard Joe had sent the lad, hardly expecting a reply. Joe
had just done it as a kind remembrance to the lad to whom he had given a
little help.
But Benny wrote rather a long letter in reply, Joe having given his
future address. In the letter Benny said that he was not feeling well,
but that he still had to go on with his tank act.
“I rather wish, some days, that I had your work,” he wrote. “I gave your
regards, as you requested, to Jim Tracy and Miss Morton. They wish to be
remembered to you. Miss Morton wants to know if you are ever going to
join a circus.”
Joe smiled in reflective fashion as he folded the letter and put it in
his pocket. So Helen Morton, “Mademoiselle Mortonti,” had not forgotten
him, nor had the ring-master, though their acquaintanceship was of the
briefest. Joe was glad they had remembered him—particularly glad in the
case of Helen.
But, for the time being, the letter was put aside. Joe’s mind was busy
trying to conjecture who the two men at the hotel could be.
“I wonder if I’d better go down and see if I can’t get a look at them
without their seeing me?” he asked Professor Rosello.
“I wouldn’t, Joe,” was the advice. “If I’m any judge they’ll be at the
show to-night, and you can see them then.”
“What makes you think they’ll be here?”
“Because I heard one of them ask what sort of show ours was. There are
posters in the hotel you know. The other man said it wasn’t half
bad—quite a compliment to us, Joe. And the first one remarked, as they
had nothing to do to-night, they might as well take in our performance.
So we may see them in the audience.”
“Do you think they know I’m with you?”
“I don’t see how they can. You don’t recall them, and it isn’t likely
they’d know you.”
“All right, then I’ll be on the lookout for them,” Joe decided. “It sure
is queer, though, that they should make a joke about the deacon’s loss.”
“That’s the way it struck me,” agreed the professor. “Now how about the
tricks to-night? Have you the pigeons and the canary?”
“Yes,” answered Joe. “But I’m not just sure of what I am to do.”
“Then we’ll have a little rehearsal.”
Joe was a little nervous that evening as the time for the performance
drew near and the theatre began to fill. He was not at all alarmed at
the part he was to play on the stage, for he had become used to that
now. But he wanted to see the strange men, to ascertain if, by any
possible chance, they could be some of the customers of his
foster-father—customers he might have seen about the feed and grain
place.
“I’ll point them out to you if I see them,” said the professor, as he
was getting into his dress suit—the suit that had about it so many
pockets, hidden in various places, so that articles could be gotten rid
of or produced at will. Joe now had a suit like this, since he did
almost as many tricks as Professor Rosello himself.
“I may not be able to see them very well from the stage,” Joe remarked.
“Well then, you can invent some excuse to go down in the audience. Work
one of the simple card tricks, or something like that.” For Joe was
becoming adept in manipulating cards, allowing persons to choose cards,
thrust them back into the pack without his seeing them, and picking them
out again. Of course, this was all done either by “forcing” certain
cards, known in advance, or by clever cutting, shuffling the cards
falsely, or by prepared trick cards.
“Well, that might do,” agreed Joe. “We’ll just have to trust to luck.”
The curtain went up, and the usual procedure was gone through with. Joe
noticed that the professor was paying more attention than usual to the
audience, carefully scrutinizing every section of the hall. But if he
saw the two suspicious men he gave no sign to Joe.
There were two new tricks to be performed that evening. One was the
production of two doves in a seemingly empty cage, causing them to
materialize from guinea pigs.
Another illusion was to seemingly burn up a canary bird, and bring it to
life again.
The first trick went off well. A large bird cage was shown on a table.
There was nothing in it, as far as could be seen. Professor Rosello took
two small, live guinea pigs, which he said he would put into a tin
cylinder on a second table, and at the firing of a pistol the guinea
pigs would disappear, being changed into doves in the empty cage.
He did just as he said he would do. The guinea pigs were put in the tin
cylinder and the cover clapped on. The performer aimed a stage pistol at
the tin, fired, and with the flash and report two white doves were seen
fluttering in the cage. The tin cylinder, being opened, was seen to be
empty.
The trick was mechanical, of course. As soon as the guinea pigs were put
in the cylinder, they slipped down through a false bottom, and through a
trap in the table, to a little box made to receive them. That left the
cylinder empty.
The bird cage was a trick one. As the audience looked at it while it
stood on the table, it seemed to be an ordinary cage. But behind it was
a black velvet curtain which concealed from view the fact that the back
of the cage was double. It was as if the bottom of the cage had been
folded up against the rear, and in between the false bottom and the
back, was a place large enough to hold two white doves.
When the pistol was fired Joe, behind the scenes, pulled a black silk
thread that let the false side fall down, and become a second bottom of
the cage. The falling away of the side allowed the doves to flutter from
their concealed hiding place into the cage, where they seemed to appear
so miraculously.
The trick with the canary was worked differently. A live canary, was
shown. It was placed in a light paper bag, the mouth tied, and the bag
and canary were hung in the center of a target suspended on the stage by
wires. After the usual “patter” a rifle was fired at the suspended bag.
To make the trick more effective some one in the audience was allowed to
shoot at the canary in the bag. As he did so the bag burst into flames,
disappeared and, where the target had been, there suddenly appeared a
bird cage with a live canary in it.
The trick was worked as follows:
Two canaries were used. Before the trick was performed one was put into
a trick cage which, when suspended from the stage with its top toward
the audience, seemed to be a target. There was a paper target and
bull’s-eye in fact, but it closed up by springs at the proper time, and
did not show on top of the cage, which contained a live canary in a
secret compartment.
This piece of apparatus was in place before the trick started. The
professor put a live canary in a paper bag. That is, he seemed to do so.
In reality the canary was safely hidden in a compartment of a table near
which the professor stood with the bag. This was sleight-of-hand work.
The bag was made of a special kind of paper which would burn instantly,
with a flash of fire when ignited, something like flash-light powder.
Professor Rosello appeared to hang the paper bag, inside of which was
the canary, in front of the bull’s-eye. As a matter of fact, there was
nothing in the paper bag. But it was hung near a little electrical
device, from which ran wires back of the rear stage draperies. Behind
the curtains Joe was concealed.
When all was ready the professor handed some one in the audience a stage
gun that fired no missile—only making a report. The man was told to aim
at the paper bag in front of the target, and did so.
“Fire!” called the professor, after some talk in which he professed
uneasiness for the safety of the audience.
At the sound of the report the paper bag disappeared in a flash of flame
and smoke. The target also disappeared, and there, hanging from its
supporting wires, was a bird cage with a live canary in it.
When the gun was fired Joe, behind the scenes, pressed the button of the
electrical device. A tiny flame appeared, set fire to the prepared bag,
which at once went up in smoke. At the same time Joe pulled a black silk
thread connected with the birdcage which, with its top presented to the
audience, looked like a target. The target was folded away out of sight,
and the bird cage, which was a collapsible one, expanded to its regular
shape, the second canary fluttering about as soon as released from the
secret compartment where it had been hidden all the while.
Thus was a bird seemingly burned, only to be reincarnated. It was an
effective illusion.
It was now time for Joe’s disappearing trick, and while he was taking
his place on the prepared chair over the trap-door in the stage, and
while the professor was putting the black sheet over him, he managed to
whisper to Joe:
“Look at the two men in the seventh row in the two end seats on your
right.”
“I see them,” said Joe in a low voice.
“They are the ones I heard talking at the hotel. Do you know them?”
The professor asked this in between his “patter” which went with the
disappearing trick.
“Their faces seem familiar,” Joe said, as the veil went over his head.
“But I’m not sure I know them. I’ll see them after the show.”
There were a few more illusions, and the performance came to a close.
Joe, not stopping to change his clothes, started down the aisle.
“I’ll follow those men,” he said to the professor, who nodded a
permission.
But as Joe reached the lobby of the theatre, intending to question the
men, if he could stop them, he fell back in astonishment at the sight of
his foster-father and Hen Sylvester, one of the Bedford constables.
“Ha! There he is!” cried the deacon. “I’ve got you now!” and he made a
grab for Joe.