The strength and dexterity of my hands was the key to this.
Now, briefly, I break off from the writing of this to consider my hands. I lay down my pen to hold them before me again, turning them in the light from the mantle, trying to see them not in the so familiar way that I see them every day, but as I imagine a stranger might. Eight long and slender fingers, two sturdy thumbs, nails trimmed to an exact length, not an artist's hands, nor a labourer’s, nor those of a surgeon, but the hands of a carpenter turned prestidigitator. When I turn them so that the palms face me, I see pale, almost transparent skin, with darker roughened patches between the joints of the fingers. The balls of the thumbs are rounded, but when I tense my muscles hard ridges form across the palms. Now I reverse them and see the fine skin again, with a dusting of blond hairs. Women are intrigued by my hands, and a few say they love them.
Every day, even now in my maturity, I exercise my hands. They are strong enough to burst a sealed rubber tennis ball. I can bend steel nails between my fingers, and if I slam the heel of my hand against hardwood, the hardwood splinters. Yet the same hand can lightly suspend a farthing by its edge between my third and fourth fingertips, while the rest of the hand manipulates apparatus, or writes on a blackboard, or holds the arm of a volunteer from the audience, and it can retain the coin there through all this before sliding it dexterously to where it might seem magically to appear.
My left hand bears a small scar, a reminder of the time in my youth when I learnt the true value of my hands. I already knew, from every time that I practised with a pack of cards, or a coin, or a fine silk scarf, or with any one of the conjurer's props I was slowly amassing, that the human hand was a delicate instrument, fine and strong and sensitive. But carpentry was hard on my hands, an unpleasant fact I discovered one morning in the yard. A moment's lost attention while shaping a felloe, a careless movement with a chisel, and I cut a deep slash in my left hand. I remember standing there in disbelief, my fingers tensed like the talons of a claw, while dark-red blood welled out of the gash and ran thickly down my wrist and arm. The older men I was working with that day were used to dealing with such injuries, and knew what to do; a tourniquet was rapidly applied, and a cart readied for the dash to hospital. For two weeks afterwards my hand was bandaged. It was not the blood, not the pain, not the inconvenience; it was the dread that when the cut itself healed my hand would be found to have been cut through in some final, devastating way, immobilizing it forever. As events turned out no permanent damage was done. After a discouraging period when the hand was stiff and awkward to use, the tendons and muscles gradually eased up, the gash healed and knitted properly, and within two months I was back to normal.
I took it as a warning, though. My legerdemain was then only a hobby. I had never performed for anyone, not even, like Robert Noonan, for the entertainment of the men I worked with. All my magic was practice magic, executed in dumb show before the tall mirror. But it was a consuming hobby, a passion, even, yes, the beginning of an obsession. I could not allow an injury to put it in jeopardy!
That gashed hand was therefore another turning point, because it established the paramountcy of my life. Before it happened I was a trainee wheelwright with an engrossing pastime, but afterwards I was a young magician who would allow nothing to stand in his way. It was more important to me that I should be able to palm a hidden card, or deftly reach for a concealed billiard ball inside a felt-lined bag, or secretly slip a borrowed five-pound note into a prepared orange, trivial though these matters might seem, than that I might one day again hurt one of my hands while making a wheel for the cart of a publican.
I said nothing of this to me! What is it? How far is it to be taken? I must write no more until I know!
So, now we have spoken, it is agreed I may continue? Here it is again, on that understanding. I may write what I see fit, while I may add to it as I see fit. I planned nothing to which I would not agree, only to write a great deal more of it before I read it. I apologize if I think I was deceiving me, and meant no harm.
I have read it through several times, & I think I understand what I am driving at. It was only the surprise that made me react the way I did. Now I am calmer I find it acceptable so far.
But much is missing! I think I must write about the meeting with John Henry Anderson next, because it was through him I gained my introduction to the Maskelynes.
I assume there is no particular reason why I can't go straight to this?
Either I must do this now, or leave a note for me to find. Exchange me this more often!
I must not leave out on any account:
1. The way I discovered what Angier was doing, & what I did about him.
2. Olive Wenscombe (not my fault, NB).
3. What about Sarah? The children?
The Pact extends even to this, does it? That's how I interpret it. If so, either I have to leave a lot out, or I have to put in a great deal more.
I am surprised to discover how much I have already written.
When I was sixteen, in 1872, John Henry Anderson brought his Touring Magical Show to Hastings, and took up a week's residence at the Gaiety Theatre in Queens Road. I attended his show every night, taking seats as close to the front of the auditorium as I could afford. It would have been inconceivable to have missed a single performance of his. At that time not only was he the leading stage illusionist with a touring show, not only was he credited with the invention of numerous baffling new effects, but he had a reputation for helping and encouraging young magicians.
Every night Mr Anderson performed one particular trick known in the world of magic as the Modern Cabinet Illusion. During this he would invite on stage a small committee of volunteers from the audience. These men (they were always men) would assist in pulling on to the stage a tall wooden cabinet mounted on wheels, sufficiently raised from the floor to show that no one could enter it via a trap in the base. The committee would then be invited to inspect the cabinet inside and out to satisfy themselves it was empty, turn it around for the audience to see it from all sides, even choose one of their number to step inside for a moment to prove that no other person could be concealed within it. They would then collaborate in locking the door and securing it with heavy padlocks. While the committee remained on the stage Mr Anderson once again rotated the cabinet for the audience to satisfy themselves that it was securely sealed, then with quick motions he dashed away the restraining padlocks, threw open the door . and out would step a beautiful young assistant, wearing a voluminous dress and large hat.
Every night when Mr Anderson made his call for volunteers I would stand up eagerly to be selected, and every night he would pass me by. I badly wanted to be chosen! I wanted to find out what it was like to be on the stage under the lights, in front of an audience. I wanted to be near to Mr Anderson when he was performing the illusion. And I positively craved a good close look at the way the cabinet had been built. Of course I knew the secret of the Modern Cabinet, because by this time I had learnt or worked out for myself the mechanism of every illusion then current, but to see a top magician's cabinet at close quarters would have been a golden opportunity to examine it. The secret of that particular illusion is all in the making of the cabinet. Alas, such a chance was not to be.