G. K. Chesterton

“ She puts her hand on the handle of the door, but the Conjurer, who is sitting on the table and staring at his boots, does not notice the action, and goes on as in a sincere soliloquy.
Conjurer. I don't know whether you have any notion of what it means to a man like me to talk to a lady like you, even on false pretences. I am an adventurer. I am a blackguard, if one can earn the title by being in all the blackguard societies of the world. I have thought everything out by myself, when I was a guttersnipe in Fleet Street, or, lower still, a journalist in Fleet Street. ”

“ Patricia. Oh, Morris is ever so much better! The Conjurer has told him such a good story of how the trick was done.
Enter Conjurer.
Duke. Professor, we owe you a thousand thanks!
Doctor. Really, you have doubled your claim to originality!
Smith. It is much more marvellous to explain a miracle than to work a miracle. What was your explanation, by the way?
Conjurer. I shall not tell you.
Smith. [Starting.] Indeed? Why not?
Conjurer. Because God and the demons and that Immortal Mystery that you deny has been in this room to-night. Because you know it has been here. Because you have felt it here. ”

“ Carleon, you will forgive an old man, who knew your father well, if he doubts whether you are doing yourself justice in treating yourself as an American Indian, merely because you have lived in America. In my old friend Huxley's time we of the middle classes disbelieved in reason and all sorts of things. But we did believe in good manners. It is a pity if the aristocracy can't. I don't like to hear you say you are a savage and have buried a tomahawk. I would rather hear you say, as your Irish ancestors would have said, that you have sheathed your sword with the dignity proper to a gentleman. ”

“ Conjurer. Sometimes I am afraid I am something worse than the Conjurer.
Patricia. [Seriously.] I cannot think of anything worse than a conjurer who does not call himself a conjurer.
Conjurer. [Gloomily.] There is something worse. [Rallying himself.] But that is not what I want to say. Do you really find that very unpardonable? Come, let me put you a case. Never mind about whether it is our case. A man spends his time incessantly in going about in third-class carriages to fifth-rate lodgings. He has to make up new tricks, new patter, new nonsense, sometimes every night of his life. ”

“ Conjurer. Swallows it.
Doctor. Then we all agree there shall be no quarrel.
Smith. May I say a word? I have a great dislike of a quarrel, for a reason quite beyond my duty to my cloth.
Morris. And what is that?
Smith. I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument. May I bring you back for a moment to the argument? You were saying that these modern conjuring tricks are simply the old miracles when they have once been found out. But surely another view is possible. When we speak of things being sham, we generally mean that they are imitations of things that are genuine. ”

“ I am a man. And you are a woman. And all the elves have gone to elfland, and all the devils to hell. And you and I will walk out of this great vulgar house and be married.... Every one is crazy in this house to-night, I think. What am I saying? As if you could marry me! O my God!
Patricia. This is the first time you have failed in courage.
Conjurer. What do you mean?
Patricia. I mean to draw your attention to the fact that you have recently made an offer, I accept it.
Conjurer. Oh, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. ”

“ Tell any other human being about a girl dreaming of the fairies and her practical brother from America, and he would settle it in some obvious way and satisfy some one: send her to America or let her have her fairies in Ireland. Now the Duke thinks a conjurer would just meet the case. I suppose he vaguely thinks it would brighten things up, and somehow satisfy the believers' interest in supernatural things and the unbelievers' interest in smart things. As a matter of fact the unbeliever thinks the conjurer's a fraud, and the believer thinks he's a fraud, too. The conjurer satisfies nobody. ”

“ We began with a fairy tale. Have I any right to take advantage of that fairy tale? Has not that fairy tale really and truly come to an end?
Patricia. Yes. That fairy tale has really and truly come to an end. [Looks at him a little in the old mystical manner.] It is very hard for a fairy tale to come to an end. If you leave it alone it lingers everlastingly. Our fairy tale has come to an end in the only way a fairy tale can come to an end. The only way a fairy tale can leave off being a fairy tale.
Conjurer. ”

“ Conjurer. There is no bigot like the atheist. I must think.
[Walks towards the garden windows. The other men reappear to arrest his movement.
Doctor. Where are you going?
Conjurer. I am going to ask the God whose enemies I have served if I am still worthy to save a child.
[Exit into garden. He paces up and down exactly as Morris has done. As he does so, Patricia slowly goes out; and a long silence follows, during which the remaining men stir and stamp very restlessly. The darkness increases. It is long before anyone speaks.
Doctor. [Abruptly.] Remarkable man that Conjurer. Clever man. ”

“ Doctor. No; I should call that a conjuring trick. Or, in apology to your cloth, I will say a miracle.
Smith. I accept the apology to my cloth. I am doing my duty as a priest. How can the Church have a right to make men fast if she does not allow them to feast?
Doctor. [Bitterly.] And when you have done feasting them, you will send them to me to be cured.
Smith. Yes; and when you've done curing them you'll send them to me to be buried.
Doctor. [After a pause, laughing.] Well, you have all the old doctrines. It is only fair you should have all the old jokes too.
Smith. ”

“ Conjurer. Oh, I don't mind anyone knowing everything, Miss Carleon. There is something that is much more important than knowing how a thing is done.
Morris. And what's that?
Conjurer. Knowing how to do it.
Morris. [Becoming nasal again in anger.] That's so, eh? Being the high-toned conjurer because you can't any longer take all the sidewalk as a fairy.
Patricia. [Crossing the room and speaking seriously to her brother.] Really, Morris, you are very rude. And it's quite ridiculous to be rude. This gentleman was only practising some tricks by himself in the garden. ”

“ Conjurer. You have already told me what he did. He destroyed a fairy tale, for he created a fairy tale that he was bound to destroy. [Swinging round suddenly on the table.] But do you blame a man very much, Miss Carleon, if he enjoyed the only fairy tale he had had in his life? Suppose he said the silly circles he was drawing for practice were really magic circles? Suppose he said the bosh he was talking was the language of the elves? Remember, he has read fairy tales as much as you have. Fairy tales are the only democratic institutions. All the classes have heard all the fairy tales. ”

“ I'll darn that conjurer's hat—does one darn hats?—and cook the Conjurer's dinner. By the way, what is a Conjurer's dinner? There's always the goldfish, of course....
Conjurer. [With a groan.] Carrots.
Patricia. And, of course, now I come to think of it, you can always take rabbits out of the hat. Why, what a cheap life it must be! How do you cook rabbits? The Duke is always talking about poached rabbits. Really, we shall be as happy as is good for us. We'll have confidence in each other at least, and no secrets. I insist on knowing all the tricks. ”

“ When he did the old tricks they were new tricks. He got the pull on the public. He could do his tricks before grown men, great bearded fighting men who could win battles and sing Psalms. But this modern conjuring is all behind the times. That's why they only do it with schoolboys. There isn't a trick on that table I don't know. The whole trade's as dead as mutton; and not half so satisfying. Why he [pointing to the Conjurer] brought out a bowl of goldfish just now—an old trick that anybody could do. ”

“ The scene appears to fade away, and give place to the milieu of Act One, the Duke's drawing-room, an apartment with open French windows or any opening large enough to show a garden and one house fairly near. It is evening, and there is a red lamp lighted in the house beyond. The Rev. Cyril Smith is sitting with hat and umbrella beside him, evidently a visitor. He is a young man with the highest of High Church dog-collars and all the qualities of a restrained fanatic. He is one of the Christian Socialist sort and takes his priesthood seriously. He is an honest man, and not an ass. ”

“ God understandeth the way thereof and He knoweth the place thereof. For He looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole Heaven. But to man He hath said: Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. [Turns suddenly to the Doctor.] How's that for Agnosticism, Dr. Grimthorpe? What a pity that apparatus is lost.
Morris. Well, you may just smile how you choose, I reckon. But I say the Conjurer here could be the biggest man in the big blessed centuries if he could just show us how the Holy old tricks were done. ”

“ Smith. I only ask because you scientific men are a little hard on us clergymen. You don't believe in a priesthood; but you'll admit I'm more really a priest than this Conjurer is really a magician. You've been talking a lot about the Bible and the Higher Criticism. But even by the Higher Criticism the Bible is older than the language of the elves—which was, as far as I can make out, invented this afternoon. But Miss Carleon believed in the wizard. Miss Carleon believed in the language of the elves. And you put her in charge of an invalid without a flicker of doubt: because you trust women. ”

“ I did it by devils. [Turning furiously on Patricia.] You could believe in fairies. Can't you believe in devils?
Patricia. [Seriously.] No, I can't believe in devils.
Conjurer. Well, this room is full of them.
Patricia. What does it all mean?
Conjurer. It only means that I have done what many men have done; but few, I think, have thriven by. [He sits down and talks thoughtfully.] I told you I had mixed with many queer sets of people. Among others, I mixed with those who pretend, truly and falsely, to do our tricks by the aid of spirits. I dabbled a little in table-rapping and table-turning. ”

“ It takes some time to prepare an impromptu. A man like that walks about the woods and fields doing all his tricks beforehand, and talking all sorts of gibberish because he thinks he is alone. One evening this man found he was not alone. He found a very beautiful child was watching him.
Patricia. A child?
Conjurer. Yes. That was his first impression. He is an intimate friend of mine. I have known him all my life. He tells me he has since discovered she is not a child. She does not fulfil the definition.
Patricia. What is the definition of a child?
Conjurer. Somebody you can play with. ”

“ Doctor. [With a sour smile.] Well, they saw them in Ireland. I suppose it's quite correct to see fairies in Ireland. It's like gambling at Monte Carlo. It's quite respectable. But I do draw the line at their seeing fairies in England. I do object to their bringing their ghosts and goblins and witches into the poor Duke's own back garden and within a yard of my own red lamp. It shows a lack of tact.
Smith. But I do understand that the Duke's nephew and niece see witches and fairies between here and your lamp. ”

“ Duke. Well, well, I must go and see how Morris is. Pleasure of seeing you later.
[Exit Duke, leaving the programmes.
Conjurer. Why are nice men such asses? [Turns to arrange the table.] That seems all right. The pack of cards that is a pack of cards. And the pack of cards that isn't a pack of cards. The hat that looks like a gentleman's hat. But which, in reality, is no gentleman's hat. Only my hat; and I am not a gentleman. I am only a conjurer, and this is only a conjurer's hat. I could not take off this hat to a lady. I can take rabbits out of it, goldfish out of it, snakes out of it. ”

“ We old buffers won't be too strict with you if your view of things sometimes gets a bit—mixed up, shall we say? If the stars get loose about the grass by mistake; or if, once or twice, the sunset gets into the east. ”

“ You don't tell your tricks. I don't tell my tricks.
Doctor. [With some heat.] Ours are not tricks.
Conjurer. [Reflectively.] Ah, no one can be sure of that till the tricks are told.
Doctor. But the public can see a doctor's cures as plain as....
Conjurer. Yes. As plain as they saw the red lamp over his door this evening.
Doctor. [After a pause.] Your secret, of course, would be strictly kept by every one involved.
Conjurer. Oh, of course. People in delirium always keep secrets strictly.
Doctor. No one sees the patient but his sister and myself. ”

“ I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument. ”