Though an ardent devotee of legerdemain, Houdin did not neglect his trade of watchmaker. When his apprenticeship was over, he went to Tours as a journeyman, in the shop of M. Noriet, who afterwards became a noted sculptor. While in the employ of M. Noriet, Houdin was poisoned by eating a ragôut cooked in a stew pan in which there chanced to be verdigris. He was very ill, and his life was saved with difficulty. Possessed with the idea that he was soon to die, he escaped one day from his nurse and doctor and set out for Blois to bid adieu to his family before he departed from this sublunary sphere. A most singular adventure befell him, which reads like a romance. Those who believe in destiny have here a curious example of its {136} strange workings. The jolting of the lumbering old diligence gave Houdin great pain. He was burning with fever and delirious. Without any one knowing it, he opened the door of the _rotonde_, in which he happened to be the only passenger, and leaped out on the high road, where he lay unconscious. When he recovered his senses, he found himself lying in a comfortable bed. An unknown man with a phial of medicine in his hand bent over him. By the strangest luck, Houdin had fallen into the hands of a traveling conjurer named Torrini, who went about the country in a sort of house on wheels, which was drawn by a pair of big Norman horses. This unique vehicle which was six yards in length could be converted into a miniature theatre twice its size by an ingenious mechanical arrangement. The body was telescopic and could be drawn out, the projection being supported by trestles. Torrini early in life had been a physician and was able to tend his patient with intelligence and skill. Finding the young watchmaker a clever mechanician, Torrini gave him some magical automata to repair, and Houdin was introduced for the first time to the little Harlequin that jumps out of a box and performs various feats at the mandate of the conjurer. A delightful friendship began between the watchmaker and the wizard. Torrini, who was an expert with cards, initiated Houdin into the secrets of many clever tricks performed with the pasteboards. He also corrected his pupil’s numerous mistakes in legerdemain, into which all self-educated amateurs fall. It was a fascinating life led in this conjurer’s caravan. Besides Torrini and Houdin there was Antonio, the assistant, and man of all work. Torrini related many amusing adventures to his young pupil, which the latter has recorded in his admirable autobiography. It was he, the _ci-devint_, Comte de Grisy who performed the famous watch trick before Pius VII. and had so unique revenge upon the Chevalier Pinetti.