Note 54 — Chapter XIV · THE ENCHANTED PORTFOLIO.
Professor Hoffmann translation
We can confirm the above statement from personal experience, having had the opportunity of seeing the trick performed in Paris by M. Robert-Houdin the younger. Some of the details, as above described, were omitted, but the introduction of the child was retained; and, though fully conversant, theoretically with the modus operandi, found it difficult to believe, until assured by the event, that the child had been introduced in the mere moment of time during which the piece of cloth was permitted to hang down from the edge of the portfolio.
Fig. 33.
The ingenuity of later inventors has added new incidents to the trick. One is the production of a large five-branch chandelier, with lighted candles, as shown in Fig. 33. The central rod, or stem, of the chandelier is telescopic, one part sliding within the other. The five arms, which are slightly unequal in length, work on this as a pivot, folding flat one against the other, as shown in Fig. 34, and in that condition occupy but very little space. The candles, the wicks of which are touched with paraffin or turpentine, to cause them to ignite readily, are lighted with an ordinary lucifer under cover of the portfolio, before the chandelier is expanded into the shape in which it is afterwards produced.
Fig. 34.
Another object, which is now frequently produced from the portfolio, is a square fernery with glass sides, standing about 15 inches high, and of the appearance depicted in Fig. 35. The framework of the fernery is made of tin. The feet—which are not solid at the angles, as they at first sight appear to be, but each consist of two separate pieces of tin—may be folded flat against the bottom, and the top and sides in like manner fold, down one by one, the whole occupying ultimately a space of little more than an inch deep. Of the ferns, the greater number are glued flat against the glass sides, while a few in the centre are attached to a spring flap, folding down with the sides, but rising as soon as these are lifted.—Ed.
Fig. 35.