Dorrimore I will relate briefly the circumstances
under which I had met him some years before. One
evening a half-dozen men of whom I was one were
sitting in the library of the Bohemian Club in San
Francisco. The conversation had turned to the sub-
ject of sleight-of-hand and the feats of the prestidigi-
tateurs, one of whom was then exhibiting at a local
theatre.
'These fellows are pretenders in a double sense,'
said one of the party; 'they can do nothing which
it is worth one's while to be made a dupe by. The
humblest wayside juggler in India could mystify
them to the verge of lunacy.'
'For example, how?' asked another, lighting a
cigar.
'For example, by all their common and familiar
performances--throwing large objects into the air
which never come down; causing plants to sprout,
grow visibly and blossom, in bare ground chosen by
spectators; putting a man into a wicker basket,
piercing him through and through with a sword
while he shrieks and bleeds, and then--the basket
being opened nothing is there; tossing the free end
of a silken ladder into the air, mounting it and
disappearing.'
'Nonsense!' I said, rather uncivilly, I fear. 'You
surely do not believe such things?'
'Certainly not: I have seen them too often.'
'But I do,' said a journalist of considerable local
fame as a picturesque reporter. 'I have so frequently
related them that nothing but observation could
shake my conviction.
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