It would be quite as indiscreet to ask a conjurer to explain his tricks, as a pretty woman to tell you what scent she uses for her toilet, and therefore I have never discussed the subject. The exclusive ownership of a conjuring trick is difficult to defend in law, and for this reason prestidigitators are always on their guard against the indiscretion of their workpeople. They have been betrayed a hundred times for a bottle of wine and a few banknotes, and now, taught by misfortune, they surround their experiments with as much mystery as the old Egyptian priests used in their worship of the veiled Isis. After all, our pleasure lies in this mystery only. “These phantasmagorias,” it has been well said by one of our contemporaries, whom a taste for philosophic acrobatics has led to esteem acrobats in [p101] fleshings,—“these phantasmagorias please us like every other phenomena which seems to contradict the universal order of things, to counteract the laws of nature. The universe being what it is, we have no other consolation than the dream that it is otherwise, and this is the true essence of poetry. Conjuring is lyrical poetry—fable in action.”[5] [Illustration] [p102] The time has passed when conjurers were forced to ascend a woodpile and worthy folk clung to the honour of bringing a faggot to roast them with. Every one knows that there is nothing supernatural in the illusions they create. Usually the explanation is one of the most simple things in the world, but our search for it is nearly always unsuccessful, yet whilst we persevere in it we cannot be bored, and this is really the only aim in view. [Illustration: M. DE KOLTA.] There is one conjurer more modern than Delille, more ingenious than Robert Houdin, who has carried the art of white magic to a state of perfection unknown before. This is M. de Kolta. This extraordinary man takes a sheet of paper, rolls it up like a cornucopia, and from this horn of plenty he immediately pours an avalanche of roses into a crystal cup. [p103] The spectator is bewildered. [Illustration] “Where do these roses come from?” he asks. Apparently they had been in some way concealed in the waistcoat of the thaumaturgist; but how did they get into the horn? what pushed them? what secret spring made them flow forth? [p104] We must own that no one knows. M. de Kolta then removes his coat and takes a cage containing a live bird into his hands. One, two, three! The cage and the bird are gone; nothing is left! The clever ones will gravely tell you that the cage was jointed; by pressing some secret spring it unjoints, closes or elongates itself. Most probably it assumes the shape of a narrow cylinder, in the midst of which the bird is imprisoned but not hurt. That is all very well, but what becomes of the cylinder? The magician has no accomplice; he performs the trick alone, before the eyes of the public. It seems impossible that any movement could escape that watchful gaze.