THIS is going to be a somewhat one-sided business. The trouble is that, while I am about to praise Mr. David Devant, you will find that he in his turn will only denounce me. I admit that he will not denounce me by name; but nevertheless you will find that he refers very contemptuously to those wretched amateur dabblers in conjuring who buy a few tricks, spend no time and patience on learning how to present those tricks properly, and then imagine that they are--in any sense of the word--conjurers. Now, I am one of those wretched dabblers. I have a number of conjuring tricks that repose in the box-room until my children, entertaining a friend or two, suddenly remember their existence and demand that I conjure for them. And let me say, here and now, that Mr. Devant does not really know what a grim business conjuring can be. You cannot realize that until you have to perform your tricks before four children of your own (who know how they are done) and two or three inquisitive brats who insist upon getting as close to you as possible. I admit that I am probably the worst conjurer in the world, but I cannot help feeling that the best conjurer in the world would be defeated by such conditions.

If you ask me who is the best conjurer in the world, I shall not be able to give you an answer. But I know who is the best conjurer that I have ever seen, and that is the author of this book. Mr. Devant remains in my memory as a true magician, a wizard. Twenty years ago, when I was still in my teens, I conceived the audacious plan of taking my father, who did not care much for variety shows, to the old Bradford Empire, and I went so far as to book one of the smaller boxes. That was, I imagine, the first evening (and almost the last) when I really felt a man of the world. To take one's father into a box at the local music-hall, to sit there smoking with him--that seemed to me Life. Well, I was lucky, for it happened that splendidly be-topping the bill was no less a person than Mr. Devant. My father and I were enchanted by him. He produced eggs--not a few eggs, but hundreds and hundreds of eggs, until it looked as if the stage were about to turn into one vast omelette. He showed us some of those astonishing illusions--such as "The Artist's Dream"--that he mentions in the following pages. (I say he mentions them, and that is all he does do. What he does not do is to tell us how they were done.) There seemed to be nothing that he could not do, and if he had told us that he would turn the whole orchestra into a row of nodding pot-palms, I do not think we should have been greatly surprised. If we had been living in the Middle Ages we would probably have stormed the stage, seized Mr. Devant, and promptly burned him. His figure, I repeat, has remained in my memory as that of a wizard.

Now that I have read these chapters of frank autobiography, I know that Mr. Devant is no wizard, but something better--a brave, intelligent, and hard-working public entertainer, the pride of his profession. just over ten years ago, when he was still at the very height of success, he became the victim of a paralytic disorder that compelled him to retire from the stage, and I have no doubt whatever that that catastrophe was partly brought about by years and years of overwork, not from greed, but from sheer zeal in his professional work and from a desire to give a large and enthusiastic public the best that was in him to give them. And no reader of this book will need to be told that its author has boldly faced whatever private disaster has come his way. In one respect, he has been unfortunate, far more unfortunate than most entertainers of the public. In another respect, he must count himself a lucky man, for his dexterous art remains for thousands and thousands of us a most happy memory, and in addition his name never fails to command the respect and admiration of all his fellow professionals. The art I practise is very different from that of Mr. Devant, but nevertheless we are alike in the fact that we are both compelled to appear from time to time before a waiting public with new illusions; and I for one will not grumble if there comes a day when my fellow novelists think of me as conjurers and illusionists all over the world think of Mr. Devant. The English public has its faults, no doubt, but it has the great disarming virtues of affection and gratitude, and with the publication of this book it has the opportunity of showing its affection and gratitude, for here is a man who toiled day and night to give that public a few enchanted hours of magic.

J. B. Priestley