UNREHEARSED INCIDENTS - Hugard's Magic Monthly, Feb 1951
tjmagic
One of Alexander Hermann's favorite tricks was the disappearance of a
rabbit and its recovery from the coat of a spectator in the audience.
His method of vanishing the rabbit was bold, but, in his hands, most
effective. Holding the rabbit in his left hand, he would make several
up and down movements as a preliminary to throwing it in the air,
"winding up", so to speak; and in his right hand, he held a pistol. On
the last downward movement of the rabbit, he wold drop it into a bag
servante, and immediately make an upward throw with his heft hand, and
fire the pistol under it as if blowing the rabbit to smithereens.
Immediately, rushing down the aisle, he would produce the rabbit from
the coat of a spectator.
A friendly enemy, call him Mr. A, after seeing the show several times
noticed that the spectator from whose coat the rabbit was produced,
always occupied a certain seat, though a different man was used each
time, and that the rabbit trick was always the first item after an
intermission. So, on his next visit to the show, he inveighed the
spectator into accompanying him to the bar during intermission, where
they had several drinks. Mr. A then engaged in a very animated
conversation with the stooge, and so kept him there, until the
intermission and the first trick were well over.
In the meantime, Hermann had vanished his rabbit, rushed down the aisle
to the special seat, and found no stooge, and no rabbit! He was so
enraged that he fired the pistol into the floor of the theatre several
times, and he exclaimed, "I'd like to shoot the man that played me this
trick!"
What would you have done?!!!