Return of the Great Brain

by John D. Fitzgerald

  1 didn’t see anything funny about it, but Papa and some of the other adults laughed. They all stopped laughing when I pulled the curtain over and revealed the great conjurer himself, Tom stood behind the box table wearing the high silk hat and evening cloak with his arms folded on his chest. Everybody in the audience began to applaud, and he hadn’t even done anything yet.

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  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tom said when the applause died down, “is the hand quicker than the eye? Some people say Yes and some say No. Do conjurers have supernatural powers that enable them to perform feats of magic? Some people say Yes and some say No. Today I am going to let you decide the answers to these two questions yourself by performing three of the most difficult magic tricks known.”

  Tom removed the high silk hat and held it so the audience could see inside it. Then he laid it on the table. He removed the evening cloak and showed the audience the in-side and outside before putting it back on.

  “You have seen there is nothing in the hat,” Tom said. “And you have seen there are no hidden pockets in the cloak.” He then rolled the sleeves of his shirt up above his elbows and left them there- “You can also plainly see, ladies and gentlemen, that I have nothing up my sleeves.” He held up his hands with fingers spread apart showing the back and palm of both hands. “And you can plainly see that I have nothing concealed in my hands. I will now proceed to do my first magic trick by turning the flame of a candle into a red handkerchief.”

  Tom picked up the half-open box of kitchen matches. He removed a match with his right hand and then closed the box. He put the box of matches on the box table and then lit the match on the side of it. He used the match to light the candle in the candleholder with his right hand. Then he held the doubled up fist of his left hand above the flame of the candle.

  “Abracadabra, abracadabra,” he chanted. “Flame of can-dle enter my fist and become a red handkerchief when I blow you out.”

  Tom blew out the candle. Then he held up his left fist.

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  He opened his fingers slightly. Then using his right thumb and index finger he drew a red handkerchief from his left fist. He waved it back and forth and then placed it on the table.

  Everybody in the audience applauded except some kids who were so bug-eyed with astonishment they just sat there staring with their mouths open.

  Tom put the candle and box of matches behind the box table. Then he held up the shoe box sideways.

  “I know you are all wondering what I’ve got in this shoe box,” he said. “I will tell you. I have a magic hen in this shoe box whose name is Henrietta.”

  The audience laughed.

  “Please don’t laugh,” Tom said, very serious. “If you hurt Henrietta’s feelings she might refuse to lay an egg for me.”

  The audience laughed some more.

  Tom put the shoe box down. He picked up Papa’s high silk hat and showed the audience the inside-

  “As you can see the hat is empty,” he said as he put it back down. “I will now get Henrietta to lay an egg in the

  hat.”

  He took the lid off the shoe box and stared inside. Then

  he faced the audience.

  “Now look what you have done,” he said. “You hurt Henrietta’s feelings by laughing at her. I told you she was a magic hen. She has cast a spell over the audience so you will think you are seeing just a plain old white handkerchief instead of a hen.”

  Tom reached into the shoe box and held up a white handkerchief by two corners. “I know this looks like a white handkerchief to you,” he said. “But I am actually holding

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  Henrietta in my hands. I will prove she is a real hen by mak-ing her lay an egg in the hat.”

  Tom placed the handkerchief over Papa’s hat which was turned upside down. “All right, Henrietta,” he said, “lay me an egg like a good hen.”

  Everybody started to laugh.

  “Come on, Henrietta,” Tom pleaded. “Please lay me an egg.”

  It was so comical, Tom’s talking to a handkerchief as if it were a hen that understood English, everybody laughed some more.

  “All right, Henrietta,” Tom said looking angry, “if that is the way you want to be. You lay me an egg right now or I’ll have my mother make a chicken stew out of you.”

  That made the audience roar with laughter.

  Tom held up his hands for silence. “Quiet please,” he said as he bent his head closer to the hat. “She’s cackling and clucking now. She is going to lay me an egg. She did it!”

  People in the audience were now laughing so hard some of them were holding their sides. But not for long. Tom peeled the handkerchief back holding it and the brim of the hat. He kept the hat in plain sight as he walked around in front of the box table. Then he tipped the hat so everybody in the audience could see inside. And lying in the hat was a white egg.

  Tom walked in back of the box table. He put the hat down. He picked up the handkerchief by two corners and carefully put it back in the shoe box.

  “Don’t cry, Henrietta.” he said. “I was just joking about making a chicken stew out of you.”

  The audience, which had been stunned into silence when they saw the egg inside the hat, now began to applaud

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  and whistle. Tom put the lid on the shoe box and placed it behind the box table. He took several bows and then held

  up his hands for silence.

  “I have saved the most difficult of all magic tricks for last,” he said. “But this trick can’t be done unless I’m wearing the magic hat.” He picked up the hat.

  “The egg!” I and about twenty other kids yelled at the

  same time.

  Tom didn’t pay any attention to us. He put the high silk hat on his head. I expected to see egg yolk running from under the hat and down Tom’s face, and so did everybody else in the audience. There was a dead silence when nothing happened. Finally Danny Forester cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted from the rear of the audience. “What happened to the egg?” he yelled. Tom removed the plug hat and held it so the audience could see inside it. “What egg?” he asked, looking as innocent as he could be.

  “The egg that was in the hat!” Danny shouted- “Oh, that egg,” Tom said. “I knew I had to use the magic hat for my next trick so I made it disappear.”

  That got almost as much applause as the original egg trick. Tom put the hat back on and picked up the steel bar and steel ring from the box table. He rapped the ring against the steel bar making a clinking sound. Then he

  motioned to me to take the steel bar.

  “My assistant will now pass among the audience and allow you to examine the steel bar,” he said. “I want you to

  make sure it is a solid piece of steel.”

  A dozen kids insisted on examining the steel bar and so did Seth Smith’s father and Don Huddle the blacksmith. Tom used his handkerchief to blow his nose while this was

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  going on. When I returned the steel bar to him he took hold of the end of it with his right hand and then handed me the steel ring with his left hand.

  “My assistant will now pass among you,” he said, “and let you examine the steel ring to make sure it is a solid steel ring.”

  While I was doing this Tom slid the steel bar so he was holding it with his right hand around the middle. Again Mr-Smith and Mr. Huddle examined the steel ring, along with about twenty kids. When I returned it to Tom he held it up with the thumb and index finger of his left hand.

  “I will now ask for two volunteers from the audience,” he said, “to help me perform the impossible. How about you, Basil, and you, Danny?”

  Tom then came around from behind the box table holding the steel bar in one hand and the steel ring in the other hand. He told Danny to stand on one side of him and Basil on the other side.

  “Now, Danny,” he said, “pick up that red bandanna handkerchief on the table and drape it over my right hand holding the steel bar.”

/>   Tom waited until the bandanna had been placed over his right hand covering it from view. “Now, Danny,” he said, “you take hold of one end of the steel bar with your right hand, and Basil, you take hold of the other end with your left hand.”

  Both boys took a firm grip on the steel bar. Tom held up the steel ring in his left hand.

  “There is no way I can put the steel ring around the steel bar without using magic powers.” he said.

  Then he placed his left hand and the steel ring under

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  the red bandanna handkerchief. “Abracadabra, abracadabra,” he chanted. “Using all my magic powers, I now command the steel bar to part in the middle so I can put the steel ring

  around it.”

  I think everybody in the audience held their breath as

  Tom stood staring at the red bandanna handkerchief.

  “Abracadabra, abracadabra,” Tom chanted. “I now command the steel bar to join itself together so nobody will ever know it parted to let me put the ring around it.”

  Again there was dead silence for a moment. “Abracadabra, abracadabra,” Tom chanted. “I now command the steel ring to spin on the steel bar when I count to three and remove my hands and the bandanna handerkerchief. One,

  two, three!”

  On the count of three Tom removed his hands jerking

  the bandanna handkerchief quickly away from the steel bar. I thought my own eyes and the eyes of everybody in the audience were going to pop right out of our heads. The steel ring was around the steel bar and spinning.

  Tom laid the bandanna handkerchief down on the box table. Then he used his own handkerchief to wipe his tore-head. For my money, his whole body should have been wringing wet with sweat after pulling a magic trick like that.

  Danny and Basil were still holding the steel bar. Danny’s left eyelid which was usually half closed was wide open, and so was his mouth. Basil kept blinking his eyes as he stared at the steel bar and steel ring as if he couldn’t believe them. Finally Danny recovered enough to speak.

  “I still don’t believe it,” he said.

  “Examine the steel bar and ring all you want,” Tom

  said.

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  Danny let go of the steel liar and removed the ring. He stared at the ring for a moment and then put it in his mouth and bit on it.

  “Ouch!” he yelled.

  Then Basil took the .steel bar and tried to bend it but couldn’t.

  Mr. Smith and Mr. Huddle came up to the box table. They both examined the steel bar and steel ring and then walked back to their seats shaking their heads.

  All of this time the audience had been silent with astonishment. Then somebody began to applaud, and everybody joined in.

  Tom took several bows and then held up his hands for silence. “Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “That concludes Adenville’s first magic show-I can tell from your applause that all of you are satisfied you got your money’s worth.”

  That was a clever thing for Tom to say. A kid who had been applauding and whistling would have to have a coconut for a head to say he wasn’t satisfied and wanted his money back. But I could tell by how excited they looked as they left the barn that they were all more than satisfied. Tom waited until everybody had left except Frankie and me and then counted the money in the cigar box. He had five dollars and forty cents. He gave me the quarter he had promised. But all that money made me a little greedy I guess.

  “That pays me for collecting admissions and introduc-ing you,” I said. “Now how about paying me for acting as your assistant? That ought to be worth another quarter.”

  “You’ve got cabbages in your head,” Tom said. “By rights I should make you pay me for letting you be my assistant. There isn’t a kid in town who wouldn’t have jumped

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  at the chance to be my assistant and get to see the show free.”

  I knew he was right. “That is a lot of money for putting on a magic show,” I said. “But I’ll bet the kids would pay even more to see how you did all those tricks.”

  “I thought about doing just that,” Tom said. “But my

  great brain said No.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why?” Frankie said.

  “If I showed the kids how the tricks were done,” Tom said, “they would know they had been tricked by sleight of hand. And knowing they had been tricked, some soreheads among them would start yelling I’d swindled them and de-mand their money back. But-as long as they think I performed the tricks by magic none of them can claim they were

  swindled.”

  “But you were just putting on a magic show,” I said.

  “I’ll bet none of the customers at the Salt Lake Theater

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  claimed Murdock the Magician had swindled them and demanded their money back.”

  “Murdock the Magician and I are two different people,”

  Tom said. “He is a professional magician. I’m a fellow who must watch his P’s and (?’s with everybody just waiting to

  catch me backsliding.”

  “How about showing Just Frankie and me how you did

  the tricks if we promise never to tell?” I asked.

  “And also us,” Papa’s voice made us all turn around.

  “We waited until everybody had left.”

  We hadn’t heard Papa, Uncle Mark, Mr. Smith, and Mr.

  Huddle enter the barn.

  “I’m sorry,” Tom said as he hugged the cigar box with

  both hands, “but I can’t.”

  “If you are worrying about me making you refund the

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  admission money forget it,” Papa said. “You put on a good show, and it was worth every penny you charged to see it.”

  “In that case,” Tom said, “I’ll show you.”

  He put down the cigar box and picked up the box of kitchen matches and the candle in its holder from behind the box table. He set the candleholder down. Then he pushed the box of kitchen matches half open. He picked up the red handkerchief and rolled it up into a ball and placed it in the opposite end of the open box of matches-

  “I never let the audience see this end of the box of matches where the red handkerchief is hidden,” Tom said. “And after I removed a match with my right hand I pushed the matchbox closed which forced the rolied-up handkerchief into the palm of my left hand. I palmed the handkerchief in my left fist.”

  “I guessed that much,” Papa said. “But the other two tricks baffled me.”

  Tom removed the high silk hat he was still wearing and placed it upside down on the box table. He got the shoe box and placed it sideways on the table. He removed the lid and lifted out the white handkerchief, holding it by two corners.

  “I only let the audience see one side of the handkerchief,” he said. Then he crossed his arms and turned the handkerchief around. “The audience never saw this side.”

  Up close I could see a piece of white thread sewn to the top hem of the handkerchief and an egg hanging just below the middle of the handkerchief on the other end of the thread.

  “I know you are wondering about the egg,” Tom said. “But it is just an empty shell-I used a needle to punch a hole in each end. Then by blowing softly on one end I was able to blow the contents inside the shell out the hole on the

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  other end. Then I took some white glue and pasted the end of the thread to the top of the eggshell.”

  Tom turned the handkerchief around so we couldn’t see the eggshell. Then he laid the handkerchief over the plug hat just as he had done before the audience.

  “The trick is to lift up the handkerchief by the two corners opposite the ones I was holding when I put it over the hat,” he explained. He took hold of the two opposite corners and lifted them up. “You can see that leaves the eggshell lying on the bottom of the hat. Then by holding the opposite end of the handkerchief from where the thread is sewn to the hem, and taking hold of the brim of the hat,
I can show the eggshell in the hat to the audience-I know from that distance they can’t see the white thread against the white silk lining inside the hat.”

  Tom placed the hat back on the table and covered it with the handkerchief. “Now the trick is when I pick up the handkerchief I take hold of the two earners where the thread is sewn to the hem.” He took hold of the two comers and lifted up the handkerchief. “Holding it this way to put it back in the shoe box the audience can’t see the eggshell on

  the opposite side.”

  Papa shook his head as Tom put the handkerchief and eggshell back in the shoe box. “Sounds simple when you know how it is done,” he said- “Did you make up that dialogue about Henrietta? It was funny and clever.”

  “No,” Tom admitted. “Some of it I remembered Murdock the Magician using. I just made up that part about letting Mamma make stewed chicken out of Henrietta.”

  Don Huddle picked up the steel bar from the table- “As a blacksmith who works with metal,” he said, “I thought that last trick was the best of all. But I can’t for the life of

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  me figure out how you did it.”

  “It was easier than the egg trick,” Tom said. “I got two identical bridle rings from Mr. Stout at his saddle and harness shop. While J.D. was letting the audience examine the steel bar I pretended to blow my nose.”

  Tom removed his handkerchief and blew his nose and then returned it to his pocket. He then showed us a steel ring he had palmed under the thumb of his right hand.

  “That is how I got the duplicate ring into my right hand,” he said. “When J.D. handed me the steel bar I slipped the duplicate ring over it while the audience was examining the other steel ring. Then I slid the ring to the middle of the bar covering it with my fist.”