MY SHOW WAS terrific—right up until the last trick.
I had a wooden stage, a top hat, and my uncle Herbert’s wand. I pulled quarters out of kids’ ears and a stuffed rabbit out of my hat. I read my brother Theodore’s mind. I made a stream of colored confetti shoot out of my wand, and I made a baseball float across the stage. Around twenty-five people were in the audience, most of them kids from the neighborhood. I had them on the edge of their seats.
But my last trick was my greatest,
