Amateur magicians are called upon to exhibit their skill in all sorts of places. I once gave a performance in a Pullman car, going at full speed. It was on the occasion of a pilgrimage to the Scottish Rite temples of the Southwest, with a party of eminent members of the fraternity. This was in the spring of 1904. Among those who went on the journey were the Hon. James Daniel Richardson, 33°, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern jurisdiction of the United States, and Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, 32°, the “hero of Santiago,” a most genial traveling companion and raconteur. Mr. Richardson had jocularly appointed me Hierophant of the Mysteries, so I took along with me a box full of magic apparatus, to amuse the Initiates when time hung heavy on their hands. My first performance was given while speeding across the State of Kentucky. At one end of an observation car I arranged my table and paraphernalia. In honor of the Admiral, I got up an impromptu trick, which I called, “After the Battle of Santiago.” Borrowing a silk hat, and showing it empty, I began as follows: “Gentlemen, stretch your imaginations, like Jules Verne, and let this hat represent the cruiser Brooklyn, Admiral Schley’s ship. This oscillating Pullman car is the ocean. The great battle of Santiago is over. Victory has crowned the American arms. An order comes from the flagship to decorate the vessels of the fleet with bunting. The sailors of the Brooklyn dive down into the hold and bring up a variety of flags. (Here I produced from the hat the flags of all nations.) They are not satisfactory. Roll them together, says the commander, and see what the composition will make. (I rolled the flags into a bundle, which I proceeded to throw in the air, whereupon a big silk American flag appeared, the smaller ensigns having disappeared.) Ah, the Star {209} Spangled Banner, under whose folds the men of many nations live in amity as fellow citizens.” I waved the flag in the air, amid the plaudits of the spectators. Just then the car gave a terrific lurch, while rounding a curve; I lost my balance and was precipitated head first like a battering ram against the capacious stomach of an old gentleman, seated in the front row. He doubled up with pain. “Say, what kind of a trick do you call that?” he gasped out. “That,” said I, “is a representation of a sailor on board of the Brooklyn falling overboard.” “I call it a monkey trick,” he groaned. His dignity and digestive apparatus had been sadly upset. From that time on, he eyed me with suspicion whenever I gave a show, and always took a chair in the back row of seats.