dy will have disappeared before your very eyes. What's that?
Through a hole in the stage did some one say?" questioned Joe, appearing
to catch a protesting voice.

"Well, that's what I hear everywhere I go," he went on with easy
calmness. "Every time I do the vanishing lady trick some one thinks she
disappears through a hole in the stage. Now, in order to convince you to
the contrary, I am going to put a newspaper over that part of the stage
where the chair is placed. I will show you the paper before and after
the trick. And if there is not a hole or a tear in the paper, either
before or after the lady has disappeared, I think you will admit that
the lady did not go through a hole in the stage floor. Won't you?" asked
Joe Strong. "Yes, I thought you would," he added, as he pretended to
hear a "yes" from somewhere in the audience.

"All ready now, Helen," he said in a low voice to the girl, and an
attendant brought forward an ordinary looking chair and a newspaper.

Joe, who had done the trick many times before, but not often with Helen,
was perfectly at ease. Helen was very frankly nervous. She had not done
the trick for some time, and Joe had introduced into it some novel
features since last presenting it. Helen was afraid she would cause some
hitch in the performance.

"You'll be all right," Joe said to her in a low voice. "Just act as
though you had done this every day for a year."

Placing the chair in the center of the stage and handing Joe the
newspaper, the attendant stepped back. Joe addressed the audience.

"You here see the paper," said the "magician," as he held it up. "You
see that there is no hole in it. I'll now spread it down on the stage.
If the lady disappears down through the stage she will have to tear the
paper. You shall see if she does."

Joe next placed the chair directly over the square of paper and motioned
to Helen. Her plain black dress, of soft, clinging silk, swayed about
her as she took her place.

"I might add," said Joe, pausing a moment after Helen had taken her
seat, "that in order to prevent any shock to Mademoiselle Mortonti I am
going to mesmerize her. She will then be unconscious. I do this for two
reasons. In totally disappearing there is sometimes a shock to a
person's mentality that is unpleasant. To avoid indicting that on
Mademoiselle Mortonti I will hypnotize her.

"The other reason I do that is that she may not know how or when she
disappears. Thus she will not be a