After the first part of the performance, the curtain fell to enable preparations to be made for a scene called in the bills, “A Festival at a Palace in Nankin.” This was an attractive title for those who dealt in that description of cloth, but was only chosen to call to the spectator’s memory the Chinese trick, which would end the performance. When the curtain rose again the stage was entirely transformed. The tablecloths had been replaced by brocades glistening with gold and precious stones (at least, they looked so at a distance); the candles, although so numerous before, had been multiplied, and gave the stage the appearance of a fiery furnace, the veritable abode of an ally of the Evil One. The magician made his appearance in a costume which, in the public admiration, it must have exhausted the riches of Golconda to buy, and the _Festival of Nankin_ commenced with the very clever trick derived from the Chinese. Philippe took up several rings about eight inches in diameter, and intertwined them into chains and knots with the greatest possible ease. Then suddenly, when it seemed impossible for him to unravel his handiwork, he blew upon them, and the rings fell separately at his feet. This trick produced a charming illusion. The one that succeeded it, and which I never saw performed by any one else, was quite equal to the preceding one in interest. Macalister, the Scotch bricklayer (who on the stage was a negro of the name of Domingo), brought in on a table two sugar-loaves still covered with that horrible paper which the honest grocer sells at the price of colonial wares. Philippe borrowed a dozen handkerchiefs (not from accomplices), and after placing them in a blunderbuss, he fired at one of the sugar-loaves chosen by the audience. He then broke it asunder with an axe, and all the handkerchiefs were found in it. Next came _Fortunatus’s hat_. Philippe, after producing from this hat, which he had borrowed from a spectator, an innumerable number of objects, at last pulled out enough feathers to make a bed. The most amusing part of this trick consisted in the conjurer making a lad kneel down, who was completely buried in this avalanche of feathers. Another striking trick was the one called “The Kitchen of Parafaragarmus.” At Philippe’s request two schoolboys came on the stage, whom he dressed, one as scullion, the other as professed cook. Thus metamorphosed, the two young _cordons bleus_ underwent all sorts of pleasantries and mystifications. (This was a trick of Castelli’s school.)