A Country Idler--Dr. Carlosbach, Conjurer and Professor of Mystification--The Sand-bag and the Stirrup Trick--I turn Lawyer's Clerk, and the Minutes appear to me very long--A small Automaton--A respectful Protest--I mount a Step in the Office--A Machine of Porter's Power--The Acrobatic Canaries--Monsieur Roger's Remonstrances--My Father decides that I shall follow my bent......26
My Cousin Robert--The most important Event in my Life--How a Man becomes a Sorcerer--My first Sleight-of-Hand Feat--An utter Failure--Practising the Eye and the Hand--Curious Experiment in Prestidigitation--Monsieur Noriet--An Action more ingenious than delicate--I am Poisoned--Influence of Delirium......42
I return to Life--A strange Doctor--Torrini and Antonio: a Conjurer and a Fanatic for Music--A Murderer's Confession--A perambulating House--The Fair at Angers--A portable Theatre--I witness for the first Time a Conjuring Performance--The blind Man's Game at Piquet--A Dangerous Rival--Signor Castelli eats a Man alive......55
Antonio's Confessions--How to gain Public Applause--The Count de ----, Mountebank--I repair an Automaton--A Mechanician's Shop on Wheels--Nomadic Life--Happy Existence--Torrini's Lessons--His Opinions about Sleight-of-Hand--A Fashionable Greek, Victim of his own Swindling--The Conjurer Comus--A Duel at Piquet--Torrini proclaimed Conqueror--Revelations--New Catastrophe--Poor Torrini!.....73
Torrini relates his Life--Treachery of Chevalier Pinetti--A Conjurer through Malice--A Race between two Magicians--Death of Pinetti--Exhibits before Pius VII.--The Cardinal's Chronometer--Twelve Hundred Francs spent on a Trick--Antonio and Antonia--The most bitter of Mystifications--Constantinople......90
Continuation of Torrini's History--The Grand Turk orders a Performance--A marvellous Trick--A Page cut in two--Pitying Protest of the Harem--Agreeable Surprise--Return to France--Torrini's Son Killed--Madness--Decay--My first Performance--An annoying Accident--I return Home......121
The Prodigal Son--Mademoiselle Houdin--I go to Paris--My Marriage--Comte--Studies of the Public--A skillful Manager--Rose-colored Tickets--A Musky Style--The King of Hearts--Ventriloquism--The Mystifiers Mystified--Father Roujol--Jules de Rovère--Origin of the word _prestidigitateur_......136