I was proceeding to another trick, when I saw my spectator gesticulating to his neighbors, and then turning to me as if wishing to address me. I fancied he was going on with the farce to dispel any suspicion of collusion; still I thought he went too far. What was my surprise, then, when the man rose and said: “Excuse me, sir, but it seems as if your trick is not over, since you have given me a copper ring set with paste instead of my diamond solitaire.” As a mistake seemed to me impossible, I turned on my heel and commenced my preparations for the next trick. “Sir,” my obstinate spectator again took the word, “will you have the goodness to reply to my question? If the end of your trick be a jest, I acknowledge it as such, and you can return me my ring presently. If it be not so, I cannot accept the horrible substitute you have handed me.” Every one was silent: none knew the meaning of this protest, though many fancied it was on ordinary mystification, which would end in still greater glory for the performer. The claimant, the public, and myself found ourselves in the same state of uncertainty; it was an enigma which I alone could solve--and I did not know the word. Hoping, however, to escape from a position as critical as it was ridiculous, I walked up to my pitiless creditor, and, on looking at the ring I had given him, I was startled at finding it was really coarsely gilt copper. “Could the spectator to whom I applied have been no accomplice?” I thought. “Could Pinetti desire to betray me?” This supposition appeared to me so hateful that I rejected it, preferring to attribute the fatal mistake to chance. But what should I do or say? My head was all on fire. In my despair, I was about to offer the public some explanation of this untoward accident, when an inspiration temporarily relieved me from my embarrassment. “Do you still believe, sir,” I said to the plaintiff, after assuming an extreme degree of calmness, “that your ring has been changed into copper while passing through my hands?” “Yes, sir; and, besides, the one you have returned me does not in the slightest degree resemble mine in shape.” “Very good, sir,” I continued, boldly; “that is the real marvel of the trick; that ring will insensibly assume its old form on your finger, and by to-morrow morning you will see it is the one you lent me. That is what we term in the language of the cabala the ‘imperceptible transformation.’”