Sketcher.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2090, 8 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketcher.

Thc Fire King's Tricks, •‘Get onto this bill, Shorty,” remarked the city editor, who was an artist in English when wielding the pencil, but whose spoken language was fearfully and wonderfully mutilated. He took a folded band-bill from between the leaves of an assignment book, and opened it for my better inspection.

‘‘ I want fba to jump around there, find out how be does these things and make an expose of the whole business—or, hold on ; the whole business will be too mnch ; just confine yourself to half a dozen of the tricks. Tell the people exactly how they are performed and in such a clear manner that any one who reads the article may perform them. Do it in about a column, and get yonr matter in by 12 o’clock.” Then he fell to sucking at the stem of big briarwood pipe with a concentration of attention never encountered outside of a newsE office and 1 understood that I and the >ill were dismissed.

The handbill was an aggregation of big type and bigger words, informing the pablic that “ Prof. Pherguson, the Phire King and Prince of Prestidigitateurs,” would for the fieriod of one week only perform his marvelous medley of magic—eat red-hot coals,bathe in molten lead, melt bars of steel in the flame of a common candle, and in divers and sundry ways prove that he was in league with the boss of the brimstone world.

The Professor was a little man, generous and expansive in the matter of shirt-front, red as to hair, and blest with a surprising amplitude of coat sleeves and tail. “ Ladies and gentlemen," he begau, coming to the front of the stage and turning back bis cuffs with an innocent air and that generally clean-fingered dexterity which characterizes the manual motions of sleight-of-hand men, “ ladies and gentlemen, begging your pardon in advance for the liberty 1 am taking, I wish to state that in the hall of this opera boose, just outside the door, there is a faucet connected with the pipes which supply the city with water. If some young gentleman in the audience will be so kind as to fill this ttn utensil in my hand”—he lifted a tin quart bucket from the table and tapped it with bis forefinger—" with water from that faucet 1 shall proceed to burn it—not boil it, understand me, but burn the water with a flame which you may all see,” After a little natural persistence and some urging from the Professor a couple of young gentlemen, aged about thirteen summers, conveyed the tin bucket out of the hall, whence they presently returned with a quart of water, which the Professor demonstrated to be pure water by drinking a few swallows of it. A suggestion from the rear of the ball that the growler might contain beer was properly ignored, and the remainder of the clear fluid was poured from the bucket into a glass fruit dish. •

Salamandissimas,salamandosl” remarked the Professor, solemnly, while he waved his hands over the surface of the water. “ I command thee, once; I command thee, twice; I command tbec, three times, in the name of brimstone, fire I”

A rose-colored flame appeared on the water, and gradually spread until it embraced the whole area of the surface and rose pyramidwise to a height of abont twelve inches, During the subsequent proceedings the water continued to burn.

Then ensued the cracking of a number of familiar chestnuts, such as the cooking of an omelet in a borrowed silk bat, the mysterious production from nowhere of an outfit of tinware and a guinea pig, et id omne gems.

A bar of lead was melted in acrncible over a small furnace, and according to the promise on the bills the Professor proceeded to wash his hands in the molten metal. He did the work thoroughly, plunging his hands to the elbow into the crucible, now and then scooping up the liquid lead in his palm and dropping it upon the board, floor of the stage, where it instantly hardened in thin flakes. The blade of an ordinary steel table knife melted like wax in the flame of a tallow candie. under the influence of his touch, and then, dipping a pea into the dish of burning water the Professor went through the motions of writing upon a folded newspaper handed to him by one of the audience. When the ball was darkened, the words, “ Pherguson, the Phirc King, right hand of his Majesty Diablos !” stood out in green flames from the surface of the paper.

So far, so good. The tricks were performed ; but the city editor’s instructions to find out how they were performed and to write au expose of the fire king’s secrets unhappily were not yet carried out. While the audience was conveying itself through the doorway into the street, I elbowed my way behind the scenes and corralcd the Professor, who was engaged in packing his paraphernalia. When you want a man to do you a favor, it is by no means best to approach him with an obsequious air ; if you do, he will probably tumble to your racket, so to speak, and give you the cold shake. 1 kept my hat on and paralysed the Professor with a steely glare and just a shade of hauteur.

’• representing the press,” I said brusquely, producing a pasteboard. “ Are not the chemicals used in your—ah—ah—tricks, are they not dangerous—of an inflammable nature—apt to explode, and all that ? ” While I was talking, I made some notes in a manuscript book, giving the Professor the idea that the jottings were to the effect that his entertainments were of a character hazardous to the audience.

■■ Good gracious, sir! no 1 ” he gasped ; -i by all means do not publish such an insinuation ;it would ruin me. All my agents arc innocent when rightly used,’’

I smiled cynically—*• Yes, of course yon say

• But I can prove it. Potassium, phosphorus. brimstone, quicksilver. Are they explosive

The trail was getting warm. ’■ Well, of course, that depends. The potassium, for instance, how do you use it?”

11 1 drop a small quantity of it upon the surface of the water in the glass di»h. Upon contact with the water it immediately flares up and burns in a rose colore,l flame! Simplest thing in the world. With the brimstone I merely touch a piece of steel made ivd hot in the flames of a candle, and the steel melts like tallow. No danger there. A stick i f phosphorous is aflixul to my pen when 1 write upon the newspaper, a’ad of •’"Ufse in the darkness ihe writing stands out. To wash my hands in molten lead it is only necessary to bathe them previously in an ointment made of one ounce of quicksilver, two ounces oi bole amraoniaco, half an ounce of camphor,and two ounces of aqua vitsc. beaten together with a pestle in a brass mortar. I keep this mixture by me constantly, and have never yet had the slightest accident."

The still, small voice of the call-boy's clock said 11 eleven ’’ just as the Professor was finishing his meaty sentence, and I rushed around to the office with scant time to write up and hand in my copy by 12 o’clock. I had not. exposed the Professor’s whole business, but I had got at the marrow of four of his best tricks.