k in his pochette, and he could not
get it out. The next part of the trick was to gather up the four corners
of the handkerchief and whirl it around rapidly, saying, "Ladies and
gentlemen, keep your eyes on my assistant yonder." At that point I
stepped out, holding on a plate a very nice-looking sponge-cake
previously prepared. Then Tom was to say: "I will now cause the egg in
the handkerchief to pass into the cake. Watch closely, ladies and
gentlemen."

At that point Tom should have brought the handkerchief around in such a
way as to slip the china egg out into his other hand. Then I was to come
forward and cut open the cake, displaying an egg (also china),
previously placed within. And then Tom was to have produced the real
egg, and in order to prove that it was a real egg within the cake
(exchanging the two by palming one of them), he was to break the real
one into a dish.

All this, which sounds so complex to describe, was simple enough as we
had rehearsed it, and even with Tom's blunder of dropping the real egg
in the handkerchief, might have turned out all right if he had not let
go one of the corners of the handkerchief as he whirled it around his
head. I, Peter Samuels, stage manager and director of that extraordinary
performance of "Marvellous Feats of Prestidigitatorism," will never
forget my sensations when, as I advanced solemnly with the cake, a white
body whizzed through the air and struck me full on my expansive shirt
bosom, breaking with a splash, and running down over my vest and
trousers in a yellow stream.

I remember the scared look on Jonas's face, the perfectly horrified
expression that Tom wore, and also remember dimly wondering if a
guinea-fowl's egg would make as large an omlet as that of an ostrich.
For it seemed to me as if I was swimming in egg batter.

The next instant the audience broke into a perfect roar of laughter. I
threw the cake down on the table and rushed back of the curtain again,
leaving Tom and Jonas to get out of the blunder as best they could,
while I wiped off the egg as best I could with my handkerchief.

How that audience did roar! Tom stood with a knife in his hand waiting
to cut the cake. He said afterwards he felt mad enough to jump down off
the platform and pummel half a dozen big boys on the front seat. But he
kept his temper, and when the laugh died down he cut the cake open and
showed the egg, saying something about its being a small-sized egg on
account of spi