“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Joe, as he advanced to the edge of the stage, “I am afraid our genial manager has rather overstated my powers.  What I am about to do, to be perfectly frank with you, is a trick.  I lay no claim to supernatural powers.  But if I can do a trick and you can’t tell how it is done, then you must admit that, for the moment, I am smarter than you.  In other words, I am going to deceive you.  But the point is—­how do I do it?  With this introduction, I will now state what I am about to do.

“Mademoiselle Mortonti will seat herself on a stage in a chair in full view of you all.  I will cover her, for a moment only, with a silken veil.  This, if I were a real necromancer, I should say was to prevent your seeing her dissolve into a spirit as she disappears.  But to tell you the truth, it is to conceal the manner in which I do the trick.  You’d guess that, anyhow, if I didn’t tell you,” he added.

There was a good-natured laugh at this admission.

“As soon as I remove the silken veil,” went on Joe, “you will see that the lady will have disappeared before your very eyes.  What’s that?  Through a hole in the stage did some one say?” questioned Joe, appearing to catch a protesting voice.

“Well, that’s what I hear everywhere I go,” he went on with easy calmness.  “Every time I do the vanishing lady trick some one thinks she disappears through a hole in the stage.  Now, in order to convince you to the contrary, I am going to put a newspaper over that part of the stage where the chair is placed.  I will show you the paper before and after the trick.  And if there is not a hole or a tear in the paper, either before or after the lady has disappeared, I think you will admit that the lady did not go through a hole in the stage floor.  Won’t you?” asked Joe Strong.  “Yes, I thought you would,” he added, as he pretended to hear a “yes” from somewhere in the audience.

“All ready now, Helen,” he said in a low voice to the girl, and an attendant brought forward an ordinary looking chair and a newspaper.

Joe, who had done the trick many times before, but not often with Helen, was perfectly at ease.  Helen was very frankly nervous.  She had not done the trick for some time, and Joe had introduced into it some novel features since last presenting it.  Helen was afraid she would cause some hitch in the performance.

“You’ll be all right,” Joe said to her in a low voice.  “Just act as though you had done this every day for a year.”

Placing the chair in the center of the stage and handing Joe the newspaper, the attendant stepped back.  Joe addressed the audience.

“You here see the paper,” said the “magician,” as he held it up.  “You see that there is no hole in it.  I’ll now spread it down on the stage.  If the lady disappears down through the stage she will have to tear the paper.  You shall see if she does.”

Joe next placed the chair directly over the square of paper and motioned to Helen.  Her plain black dress, of soft, clinging silk, swayed about her as she took her place.