It must also be mentioned that numerous accomplices help Bosco's popularity materially. Each of them, it is known, is instructed to hand the magician a handkerchief, shawl, watch, &c., which he has in double. This allows him to pass them with an appearance of magic or skill, into a cabbage, a loaf, a box, or any other object. These accomplices, while aiding in the conjurer's experiments, have a great interest in securing their success: for their self-love finds its profit in the success of the mystification. Besides, they have no objection to accept some of the applause as their due: hence, the magician has as many admirers as accomplices, and the influence a dozen intelligent prompters can exert in a room is well known.
Such were the influences which, joined to Bosco's talent, gained him a great renown for many years.
A Reverse of Fortune--Cookery and Clockwork--The Artist's Home--Invention of an Automaton--Voluntary Exile--A modest Villa--The Inconveniences of a Speciality--Two August Visitors--The Throat of a mechanical Nightingale--The Tiou and the Rrrrrrrrouit--Seven Thousand Francs earned by making Filings.
In the meanwhile I worked indefatigably at my automata, hoping that when these were completed, I should be able to establish myself permanently. But, in spite of my activity, I advanced very slowly towards the realization of my long-deferred hopes.
Only an inventor can know the value of a day's work on the gloomy road to success in combining automata. Numberless trials and deceptions of every nature foil at any moment the best-conceived plans, and seem to realize the pleasant story about reaching the end of a journey by making two steps forward and three backward.
I performed this wearisome progress during six months, and, at the end of that time, though I had several specimens far advanced, it was still impossible for me to fix the period when they would be quite finished. In order not to defer my appearance before the public, I therefore resolved to begin with my conjuring tricks and such automata as were ready. I had arranged with an architect, who was to help me in finding a suitable site for a theatre, but I had scarce taken my first steps, when an unforeseen catastrophe ruined both my father-in-law and myself.