At the time of the amusing warfare between the perennial Charles Mathews
(“the Younger!” what happy augury in the title!) and the Great Wizard of
the North, the former, who was assisted by Mr. Cremer in many of his
diversions, created much surprise by the exhibition of a flower, as
fragile as a rose, which could not be lastingly injured.
He would pluck this flower from his button-hole, and, in sight of the
audience, who wondered “What he Would Do with It?” would dash it to the
stage, stand on it, shut it up in a book, and martyrise it in various
other modes.
In spite of this, he had but to take it up and tenderly wave it in the
air, and gently breathe a tender sigh on it, and kiss it for its mother,
when it would resume its pristine fulness of bloom—not a pistil broken,
not a petal injured.
_Explanation._—The flower is artificial, and carefully made of choice
Berlin wool, which material will bear much ill-usage without injury to
its elastic filaments.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.—The Victim of this Mystification.]
[Illustration]