HOWARD THURSTON AND THE WAITER.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 61, 9 September 1905, Page 13

HOWARD THURSTON AND THE WAITER.

•9 'Professional conjurors do not as a, rule perform their illusions in private life, for the simple reason ihat they requiro ekhorate apparatus and a stage to assist them. Howard Thurston, who is now in Melbourne, is, however, an exception, and can be demoniacal anywhere (says a contributor to Melbourno Punch). In Sydney after his show he invited a 'few choice spirits to a little supper at his hotel, and he amused them and himself by having a little fun with" the water. When the guests were seated Mr. Thurston turned to the attendant with a look of injured innocence. "Say," he remarked, "do you usually serve gold^ fishes in your drinking water in Australia, or ia this just a special oocasion?" The man with the napkin slung over his tshoulder looked in bewilderment at the crystal jug of water resting in .the centre of tho table. In it two gold fish were swimming. , ''Beg paTdin, sir," said the waiter; 1 11 (remove them at once. Can't understand the oversight at all." Mr. Allah. Shaw, who was present, then called the waiter' 6 attention to his napkin, which had fallen to the floor. The waiter reached for the water-jug, when, to hk amazement, he found that it had disappeared. Ho looked at Mr. Thurston .nervously, but the magician's countenance was undisturbed. Then the waiter glanced again at the table, and saw that 'the jug was there all right, but filled with wine. , • "Say, waiter," cried Thurston, "I wanted water, not wine. I never touch it; it's bad on the nerves. Too much alcohol creates abnormal vision, makea a man see things that don't exist." The waiter's eyea began to bulge out, and ho gasped again to behold the wino retraneformed into water with the cold fish still in it. b "You see, waiter," said Thurston "if I was wincing I should see snakes, Jiko that one in your pocket. And as he spoke he drew out a wriggler from the E°H W ' th 6 " vvaiter ' who Promptly " That's not a bad imitation," said the wizard, handling tho squirming reptile. Its a little mechanical device that I got fiKsd up in ' Murrika.' " Afte> .the supper was over, Thurston rewarded the waiter by dropping seventeen half-crowns into the 'hotel man's palm, but when the waiter clueed hie hand upon his tip, iho found that sixteen of them had vanished.