THO UGHT-EEADING. 



315 



conjuror "had several common school-slates about a 

 foot square. He took one of them to a field-officer 

 from the camp, decore and what not, who sat about six 

 from our seats, with a grave, saturnine friend next 

 him. l My General/ says he, ' will you write a name 

 on this slate, after your friend has done so ? Don't 

 show it me/ The friend wrote a name, and the 

 General wrote a name. The conjuror took the slate 

 rapidly from the officer, threw it violently down on 

 the ground with the written side to the floor, and asked 

 the officer to put his foot on it and keep it there, which 

 he did. Trie conjuror considered for about a minute 

 Booking devilish hard at the General. ' My General/ 

 says he, f your friend wrote Dagobert upon the slate 

 under your foot/ The friend admits it. ( And you 

 my General, wrote Nicholas/ General admits it, and 

 everybody laughs and applauds. ' My General, will 

 you excuse me, if I change that name into a name 

 expressive of the power of a great nation, which, in 

 happy alliance with the gallantry and spirit of France, 

 will shake that name to its centre ? ' [This was in 

 1854]. ' Certainly, I will excuse it/ 'My General, 

 take up the slate, and read/ General reads : c DAGOBERT, 

 VICTORIA/ The first in his friend's writing ; the 

 second in a new hand. I never saw anything in the 

 least like this ; or at all approaching to the absolute 

 certainty, the familiarity, quickness, absence of all 

 machinery, and actual face-to-face, hand-to-hand 

 fairness between the conjuror and the audience with 

 which it was done." 



