The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-10-11
MAe1cIAN's BURGLAR STORY.
How He Did a Few Tricks For His
Nocturnal Visitor.

Cleveland Leader: \. z. Hartz, man
ager of the Euclid avenue opera house.
used to be one of the most sl0tllful pres
tidigttators in America, and for several
years he Travelled, as Keller does now
and as Hermann did until he died not
Ions ago. While ne WAS on the road Mr.
AArtz had many adventures. soma OF
them amusing. some ridiculous and some
rather exciting. One story That he seldom
tells deals with an experience he had in
the far west He had given a perform
ance before large crowd, made up OF
frontier characters. and carried a whole
after the show He noticed that a big,
rough looking fellow WIS paving pretty
close attention. TO him when ne made his
settlement at the bo1 Office. but thought
litUle OF it.
I did trick with heavy iron links"
said Mr. HdrtZ in telling of his e&per-
fences. land l always carried them with
me to my hotel. as [ d-dn't care to have
theater attaches damage them in trying
to find out hon, L put them together and
took them apart. These links | carried in
q satchel similar to the one in which
had put my money, and owing to the
tact that the hotel safe had been smut up
for the night before my performance was
over, took both satchels to my room,
II had been asleep quite awhile, when l
suddenly felt hand placed across my
mouth. The first thing saw when I
| looked up was q revolver. and l heard
/ somebody say that | would have my head
! blown off if I made a noise of any kind.
L was then ordered TO set UP and deliver
/ What money had in the room.
| Il was as cool as [ had ever been in
| my life and. sitting up on the edge of the
| bed, | told the fellow. who was masked,
| that If he would just lower his gun
| would look about and see what 1 could
| md for MIN, knew, by the way. that
/ he WuS the same man who had watched
me make my settlement at the box office
! Then l got out the satchel containing the
! links and asked him what he thought
Was in it.
Several hundred dollars said he, and
| I want it quick
9 II you can find anything in there but
lot Of IRON ! replied. you can have it
then made few passes over the
| satchel, muttered "a little gibberish for the
purpose OF arousing his superstition. and
! tinaGV with a suddenness that he was
not hooking for, threw pile of rafting
links at his feet He jumped as if ht
mad been shot. and his chin began &c
culver l made a few more passes over
the links. which had been separated wher
threw them out. grabbed them up and
strung them together in the form of az
immense chain, which 1 flung around his
neck
q Now SAID I, L could choke you il
hdlf a minute II l wanted to- but m moi
quits, ready See if you can free your
Self?'
"He raised his hands to take hold of tn,
chain, and took advantage of an oppor
tumty TO fasten his wrists together above
his head. By that time ne was the mos
frightened man | ever saw. Sweat wa.
standing out all over his face. and III
was sll1vertng like a person with chill
After 1 had kept him standing in tina
way for awhile l gave the links a ia.
with one of my fingers, and they fel
away. setting him free.
Now. l said, I'm going to take you
mead from your body and put it in tina
wash bowl over there. If there is tn
least bit of water in the bowl it will b
impossible to put You together again: bu
if the bowl is perfectly dry, I can con
meet your head and neck an right. Pleas
look at the bowl and see if It is in th
proper condition.
"He walked over to the wash stand
took up the bowl. appeared to be ex
amining it very carefully. and then turn
ing With surprising suddenness he hurle,
it at my head.
We'll, what happened them"
Then woke up" said Mr. Hartz
J Winking at the rest of the hearers.