ir,
breathing hard, his eyes starting out of his head, his cheeks white.
Hamar saw him and grinned, grinned malevolently, but the smile died
out of his face when he glanced at Gladys--the scorn in the girl's
eyes made his blood boil.

"All right, Miss Martin," he muttered between his teeth; "you adopt
that attitude now, but you will adopt a very different one later on!
I'll win you body and soul, or my name is not what it is."

He was interrupted in this amiable reflection by Curtis. "I'm too
stout to play the role of the corpse, and so is Matt," Curtis said to
him; "you must undertake that part. Now!" he went on, "take this plug
and get into the sack," and he whispered a few instructions in his
ear. Then he tied the top of the sack--in reality tying it round the
plug Hamar was holding--and one of the audience sealed the knot.
Curtis and Kelson then lifted Hamar into the coffin, shut the lid and
corded it. Then Curtis, turning to the audience, said:

"What is now happening inside the coffin is this--'the corpse' pulls
the plug out of the mouth of the sack from the inside. The cord thus
becomes loose and 'the corpse' is able to open the sack. He at once
touches the spring I pointed out to you in the head of the coffin, and
the panel slides back--So!"

And as the audience looked, they saw the panel slide back, and first
of all Hamar's head, and then his body, wriggle through the aperture
thus made.

"The reason why you, audience, cannot see him make his escape is
this," Curtis explained; "the head of the coffin is always turned away
from you and placed against a mirror which you can't see, and which to
you appears but the continuation of the stage. In this mirror exactly
opposite the head of the coffin is an aperture, and it is through this
'the corpse' makes his exit to the back of the stage. I will show it
you. Here it is"--and beckoning to the referees to come quite close,
he pointed to a glass screen, in the centre of the base of which was a
glass trap-door, corresponding in height and girth to the head of the
coffin. "Here, corpse!" Curtis said, "crawl through"--and Hamar,
looking as if he by no means appreciated the undignified task of
wriggling on his stomach before so many eyes, drew himself as tight
together as he could, and squirmed through.

"Does that satisfy you, gentlemen?" Curtis inquired.

"Perfectly!" the referees answered. "Nothing could be plainer. We see
exactly, now, how the trick is done."