Page:Houdini - Miracle Mongers.djvu/253

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MIRACLE-MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
229

the Alhambra is recorded as one of the three big sensations of the London vaudeville stage of those days. The second sensation was credited to the Bullet-Proof Man. This chap wore a jacket that rifle bullets, fired point-blank, failed to penetrate. The composition of this jacket was a secret, but after the owner's death the garment was ripped open and found to contain—ground glass! The third sensation I must, with all due modesty, (business of bowing) claim for myself.

The Magnet failed to attract after about forty-eight hours, for a keen-witted reporter discovered her methods and promptly published them. The bullet detainer also lasted only a short time only. When my opening added a third sensational surprise, one of the London dailies asked, "Is this going to be another Georgia Magnet fiasco?"

That they were gunning for me is proved by the fact that the same newspaper investigator who exposed the Magnet, came upon the stage of the Alhambra at my press performance—the same stage where the unhappy Dixie lode-stone had collapsed—and though he