for others, but a considerable feeling of personal one-upmanship in the process. But, as the Hayden encounter may intimate, the most fun magicians have is in the company of their fellow magicians. For one thing magicians love to fool each other. In addition to the magic shops and the magic clubs a magic convention attracting anything from between 100 to 3,000 predominantly amateur and semiprofessional registrants is probably staged in the United Kingdom on an almost weekly basis, in settings ranging from the magnificence of the Blackpool Opera House to the cosiness of the lowliest village hall. It always surprises lay people to learn that at an international level, there is a circuit on which it is possible for a magician to earn his livelihood through performing, lecturing and selling his merchandise to other magicians without encountering a member of the public. These occasions represent a strange hybrid world where the mysterious mingles with the commonplace. If the public were to be admitted to anything but the performances of the classier acts the image of the genre would plummet considerably, but redeeming the whole atmosphere is an extraordinary bond of fraternity and friendship, only occasionally undermined by the feuding that will exist in any tightly knit community.
