Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

5. Avoid personalities. We except the case of the often recurring nuisance, the gentleman who professes to know how everything is done, and whose special endeavour it is to embarrass the performer. When you can make a person of this kind look like a fool (by no means a difficult task) by all means do so. 6. Never plead guilty to a failure. Keep your wits about you, and if anything goes wrong, try to save your credit by bringing the trick to some sort of a conclusion, even though it be a comparatively weak one. If you are so unfortunate as to experience a complete and unmistakeable break-down, smile cheerfully, and ascribe the fiasco to the moon being in a wrong quarter, to a little misunderstanding between two of your “controlling spirits,” or any other burlesque reason, so long as it be sufficiently remote from the true one. Bearing in mind these parting counsels, and thus armed against failure as well as prepared for success, you may safely ring up the curtain, and begin to “witch the world” with the marvels and mysteries of