The Weigh of All Flesh

By Al Baker

The orchestra plays soft, slow music as the curtain goes up. The Professor is standing on the stage at the side of a blackboard which is on an easel. In the center of the stage, hanging on a rope from the flies is a dialed scale with a large hook. The hook is about six feet above the stage. The magician claps his hands, the music increases in tempo, and two coolies come in carrying a trunk. The magician says nothing, but acts interested. The coolies lift the trunk and hang it on the hook of the scale. The scale registers just 75 pounds.

The magician turns toward the blackboard and writes “Trunk-75 pounds.” The coolies then lift the trunk off the hook, unstrap and open it. They leave the stage and quickly return, leading a slave girl. The magician gestures that the girl should be weighed. The girl is wearing a leather harness, so that when she is lifted up she may be hooked to the scale. The girl weighs (in even hundred pounds, so the magician writes under his previous figures: “Girl-100 pounds.”

The girl, upon being released from the hook, is immediately put in the trunk and the trunk is locked and strapped. The coolies once more hook the trunk on the scale. The scale registers 175 pounds. The magician draws a line under the figures on the blackboard and totals them. His sum agrees with the scale, 175 pounds. The magician picks up a pistol, points it at the trunk and shoots.

At the sound of the shot, the scale jumps back to 75 pounds. The coolies hurriedly lift the trunk off the hook and put it on the stage. They unstrap and unlock it. They open it and tip it toward the audience so that everyone can see that the girl has disappeared. Everything is done in pantomime.