It is needless to remark that this is a _fish story_. Chung Ling Soo is romancing. The gold fish are concealed in the handle of the rod. The fish that appears on the hook at each cast of the line is an imitation affair of silk, which is hidden in the hollow lead sinker. A substitution is made, and the real fish thrown into the bowl by the conjurer. The dainty little Chinese maiden (Mrs. Robinson) has nothing more to do with the trick than the people in the audience. She merely holds the bowl and looks cute. The following is a sample of some of the nonsense published {287} about Robinson, taken from the _Weekly Despatch_, April 9, 1905: “Chung Ling Soo rose from the ranks, and his fame as a sorcerer penetrated to the Chinese Empress Dowager, who commanded him to court, where, after years of service, he was promoted to many Celestial honors, and ultimately the rank of Mandarin was bestowed upon him. His skin is yellow, his eyes are black and oblique, and his teeth are absolutely inky, as all true Celestials of rank should be.” Any one acquainted with the art of stage “make-up” knows how easily these facial effects can be produced. There is even a black paste for the teeth. I don’t doubt this much of the journalist’s story—but the “Celestial honors” and the “rank of Mandarin”—shade of the illustrious Münchausen preserve us! Poor old Ching Ling Foo, the original Chinaman, has doubtless devoted his ingenious rival and “foreign devil” to the innumerable hells of the Chinese Buddhists. So much for the Oriental ancestry of my old friend, Billy Robinson, the “One Button Man” of the Celestial Empire (Theatre of London, England). Robinson is the inventor of the clever stage illusion “Gone,” which Herrmann exhibited, and which still forms one of the principal specialties of Kellar. I am indebted to my friend, Henry V. A. Parsell, for an accurate description of the trick, as at present worked by Mr. Kellar. “At the rise of the curtain the stage is seen to have its rear part concealed by a second curtain and drapery, which, being drawn up, discloses a substantial framework. This framework, at the first glance, gives one the impression that it is that horrible instrument of death, the guillotine. As will be seen, it consists simply of two uprights, with a bar across the top and another a little below the middle. Just below the centre bar is a windlass, the two ropes of which pass through two pulleys fixed to the top bar. The machine stands out boldly against a black background, the distance from which is indeterminate. “After the introduction of the fair maiden ‘who is to be gone,’ an ordinary looking bent wood chair is shown. The chair is then placed on the stage behind the framework, and by means of snap hooks the two ropes from the windlass are attached {288} to the side of the chair. The maiden is now seated in the chair and her skirt adjusted that it may not hang too low. [Illustration: “GONE,” ROBINSON’S ILLUSION.]