LOS ANGELES — At a table by the stained-glass window, an off-duty magician sat alone, working his way through a rare steak until, finally, it disappeared. When his dessert arrived with a small, dripping candle, I wished him a happy birthday, but he didn’t want to chat.

Instead, he pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and leaned toward my table. “Want to see a trick?” he asked.

Everyone who comes to the Magic Castle wants to see a trick. A Hollywood mansion built in 1909 as a family home, for decades it’s been a private club attached to the Academy of Magical Arts, an order of magicians and a school devoted to the mastery of props like coins, cards and silks.