“Yet, although the inventor chose to keep his secret, any one who has mastered the principles of the art of magic can venture an explanation. Robert-Houdin has set forth the facts honestly; and with the facts solidly established, it is possible to reason out the method employed to accomplish a deed which, at first sight, seems not only impossible but incomprehensible. “The first point to be emphasized is that Robert-Houdin was as dexterous as he was ingenious. He was truly a prestidigitateur, capable of any sleight of hand. Nothing was simpler for so accomplished a performer than the substitution of one package for another, right before the eyes of all the spectators. And it is to be remembered that although the palace was the King’s the apparatus on the extemporized stage was the magician’s. Therefore, when he borrowed six handkerchiefs and went up on the stage and made them up into a package which remained on a table in sight of everybody, we can grant without difficulty that the package which remained in sight did not then contain the borrowed handkerchiefs. “In fact, we may be sure that the borrowed handkerchiefs had been conveyed somehow to Robert-Houdin’s son who acted as his assistant. When the handkerchiefs were once in the possession of the son out of sight behind the scenery or hangings of the stage, the father would pick up his package of blank visiting-cards and distribute a dozen of them or a score, moving to and fro in very leisurely fashion, perhaps going back to the stage to get pencils which he would also give out as slowly as possible, filling up the time with playful pleasantry, until he should again {148} catch sight of his son. Then, and not until then, would he feel at liberty to collect the cards and take them over to the King. When the son had got possession of the handkerchiefs, he would smooth them swiftly, possibly even ironing them into their folds. Then he would put them into the parchment packet which he would seal twice with Cagliostro’s seal. Laying this packet in the bottom of the rusty iron casket, he would put on top the other parchment which had already been prepared, with its adroit imitation of Cagliostro’s handwriting. Snapping down the lid of the casket, the lad would slip out into the corridor and steal into the garden, going straight to the box of the appointed orange-tree. He could do this unobserved, because no one was then suspecting him and because all the spectators were then engaged in thinking up odd places to which the handkerchiefs might be transported. Already, in the long morning, probably while the royal household was at its midday breakfast, the father or the son had loosened one of the staples in the back of the box in which the designated orange-tree was growing. The lad now removed this staple and thrust the casket into the already prepared hole in the center of the roots of the tree. Then he replaced the staple at the back of the box, feeling