I can remember as a boy with what emotion I beheld the rising of the curtain, in his fantastic soirées, and saw him appear, in full court costume, smiling and bowing. Hey, presto! I expected every moment to see him metamorphosed into the Mephisto of Goethe’s “Faust,” habited in the traditional red costume, with red cock’s feather in his pointed cap, and clanking rapier by his side; sardonic, {225} and full of subtleties. He looked the part to perfection. He was Mephisto in evening dress. When he performed the trick of the inexhaustible bottle, which gave forth any liquor called for by the spectators, I thought of him as Mephisto in that famous drinking scene in Auerbach’s cellar, boring holes in an old table, and extracting from them various sparkling liquors as well as flames. In his nervous hands articles vanished and reappeared with surprising rapidity. Everything material, under the spell of his flexible fingers, seemed to be resolved into a fluidic state, as elusive as pellets of quicksilver. He was indeed the Alexander the Great of Magic, who had conquered all worlds with his necromancer’s wand—theatrical worlds; and he sighed because there were no more to dominate with his legerdemain. One of his posters always fascinated my boyish imagination. It was {226} night in the desert. The Sphinx loomed up majestically under the black canopy of the Egyptian sky. In front of the giant figure stood Herrmann, in the center of a magic circle of skulls and cabalistic figures. Incense from a brazier ascended and circled about the head of the Sphinx. Herrmann was depicted in the act of producing rabbits and bowls of gold fish from a shawl, while Mephisto, the guardian of the weird scene, stood near by, dressed all in red, and pointing approvingly at his disciple in the black art. In this picture were symbolized Egyptian mystery and necromancy, mediæval magic, and the sorcery of science and prestidigitation. IV.