Another Skeptic

     I used to do some illusions in my act; mostly while gathering a crowd for my street show. One time, I had just finished my version of the cut-and-restored rope, when a small boy piped up,
     "So what? You just cut the knot off."
     The boy's mother, who herself had been baffled by the illusion, tried to explain to her boy what made the trick astonishing, but he was too young and literal-minded to be properly impressed. So I had to sac my rope just to prove a point. I let the kid take the scissors and cut the rope in half. I helped him tie it back together, and then I let him "just cut the knot off." Which he did, whereupon, of course the rope fell into two pieces.
     The boy's response was, "Well, you were just more agile than me." That was a pretty good word, since the boy was only 6 or 7.