Part 1

LATEST MAGIC

BEING ORIGINAL CONJURING TRICKS

INVENTED AND ARRANGED BY PROFESSOR HOFFMANN (ANGELO LEWIS, M.A.)

Author of “Modern Magic,” etc.

_WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS_

FIRST EDITION

NEW YORK SPON & CHAMBERLAIN, 120 LIBERTY ST. 1918

Copyright, 1918 BY SPON & CHAMBERLAIN

CAMELOT PRESS, 226-228 WILLIAM ST., NEW YORK, U. S. A.

TO J. N. MASKELYNE, ESQ. FOREMOST OF ENGLISH MAGICIANS, AND FEARLESS EXPOSER OF FALSEHOOD AND FRAUD THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY HIS FRIEND AND ADMIRER, THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

The tricks described in the following pages are of my own invention, and for the most part are entirely new departures: not only the effects produced, but the appliances by means of which they are produced, being original.

From the nature of the case, it follows that few of the items described have been submitted to the supreme test of performance in public, but all have been thoroughly thought out; most of the root-ideas having in fact been simmering in my mind for more than two years past. One or two of them may demand a more than average amount of address on the part of the performer; but the majority are comparatively easy, and I believe I may assert with confidence that all will be found both practicable and effective. Should any of my modest inventions be found, as is not improbable, susceptible of further polish, the keen wits and ready fingers of my brother wizards may safely be trusted to supply it.

The items entitled _The Mystery of Mahomet_, _The Bewildering Blocks_, and _The Wizard’s Pocket-book_, have been described in the columns of an English magical serial, but have never appeared in book shape, and are by special desire, included in the present volume.

A final word on a personal matter. Had I been prophet, as well as magician, when I first began to write on conjuring, I should have chosen a different pen-name. In the light of later events, my selection was unfortunate. My identity has long been an open secret, but as I cannot flatter myself that it is universally known, I take this opportunity to assure all whom it may concern that I am British to the backbone.

LOUIS HOFFMANN.

CONTENTS

PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR HOFFMANN _Frontispiece_

PAGE

PREFACE vii

SOME NEW APPLIANCES OF GENERAL UTILITY 1 Magical Mats 1 Fairy Flower-Pots 5 Patter Introducing the Flower-Pots 8 Adhesive Cards and Tricks Therewith 10 The Missing Card 12

NOVEL APPLICATIONS OF THE “BLACK ART” PRINCIPLE 17 Black Art Mats and Black Art Patches 17 A Magical Transposition 23 The Detective Die 26 Dissolving Dice 32 Where is It? 38

CARD TRICKS 46 Arithmetic by Magic 46 Those Naughty Knaves 49 Magnetic Magic 55 The Telepathic Tape 57 A Card Comedy 60 The Fast and Loose Card-Box 63 A Royal Tug of War 64 Sympathetic Cards 66 Tell-Tale Fingers 68 Divination Doubly Difficult 72 A New Long Card and Tricks Therewith 77 The Mascot Coin Box 83

MISCELLANEOUS TRICKS 88 Money-Making Made Easy 88 The Missing Link 92 Culture Extraordinary 97 The Bounding Beans 104 Lost and Found 110 The Riddle of the Pyramids 115 The Miracle of Mumbo Jumbo 123 The Story of the Alkahest 130 The Oracle of Memphis 137 The Mystery of Mahomet 146 The Bewildering Blocks 156 An “Od” Force 162 The Mystery of the Three Seals 170 The Wizard’s Pocket-book 180

CONCERNING PATTER 192

THE USE OF THE WAND 203

A FEW WRINKLES 215

L’ENVOI 222

LATEST MAGIC

INTRODUCTORY

SOME NEW APPLIANCES OF GENERAL UTILITY

The little appliances to be presently described are the outcome of ideas which, after a long period of incubation in my note-books, have ultimately taken concrete form in what, I venture to believe, will be found to be practical and useful items of magical apparatus. I may further claim that they combine in an exceptional degree absolute innocence of appearance with a wide range of practical utility. Examples of their uses are indicated in the following pages, but the inventive reader will find that these by no means exhaust their possibilities of usefulness.

MAGICAL MATS

The first to be described are of two different kinds, to be known as the “Card” and “Coin” Mat respectively. They are in appearance simply circular table--or plate mats, with an ornamental border as depicted in Fig. 1, and about seven inches in diameter. In the centre of each is an embossed shield, ostensibly a mere ornament, but in reality serving, as will presently be seen, an important practical purpose.

To the casual observer the two mats look precisely alike, but there are in reality important practical differences between them. The “coin” mat is covered with leather on both sides, and each has the embossed shield, so that, whichever side is uppermost, no difference is perceptible to the eye. In the case of the “card” mat the upper surface only is of leather, the under side being covered with baize. The object of this difference is that the exposure (accidental or otherwise) of the baize-covered side of the card mat may induce in the mind of the spectator the assumption that the under side of the coin mat is covered in the same way, such assumption naturally precluding the idea that it is reversible.

Each mat has a secret space, after the manner of the old “multiplying” salver, between its upper and under surfaces. The opening in each case is opposite the lower end or point of the shield before mentioned, so that, however the mat may be placed, a glance at the shield will always furnish a guide to the position, for the time being, of the opening.

In the case of the card mat the secret space (see Fig. 2) is just large enough to accommodate three playing cards, one upon another. The corresponding space in the coin mat (Fig. 3) is shorter, narrower and deeper, being designed to receive, one upon the other, a couple of half-crowns, or coins of similar size.[1]

When required for use, the coin mat is prepared, shortly beforehand, by rubbing the whole of the space within the ornamental border on one of its faces with diachylon, in the solid form. The diachylon is used cold, the necessary friction melting it sufficiently, without any additional heating. This treatment renders the surface of the mat, for the time being, adhesive, without in any way altering its appearance. To make sure of its being just right, press a half-crown or penny down firmly upon it, turn the mat over, and wave it about freely. If the coin adheres securely, the mat is in working order.

[1] Where coins of English denominations are referred to in the text, the American wizard will naturally replace them by corresponding coins of the U. S. currency.

THE FAIRY FLOWER-POTS

These are, strictly speaking, only flower-pot cases, called in French _cache-pots_. They may be of leather or cardboard, ornamented on the outside, but plain black inside, their general appearance being as shown in Fig. 4. They have neither top nor bottom, and when not in use, can be opened out flat or rolled up as in Figs. 5 and 6, for greater portability.

The pair, when needed for use, are exhibited in the first instance as one only, the one within the other. The professedly single pot, after being proved empty by exhibiting the interior and passing the hand through it, is made into two, by simply drawing out the inner one. The duplication is not presented as a trick, the _modus operandi_ being self-evident, but it has a pretty effect, and the exhibiting of the two pots as one in the first instance admits of the presence, within the outer one, of a secret pocket, open at top, as depicted in Fig. 7, but folding down, when not in use, flat against its side.[2]

The main object of this pocket is to enable the performer to “vanish” a card. The card to be got rid of is dropped ostensibly into the flower-pot, or rather, the pot being bottomless, _through_ it on to the table, where, when the pot is lifted, the spectators naturally expect to see it. It has however disappeared, having in fact been dropped into the pocket, where it remains concealed. Two, or even three cards may on occasion be dealt with in the same way. By covering the pocket with the fingers in the act of picking up the pot, the interior of the latter may be freely shown after their disappearance.

The pocket, previously loaded accordingly (though the flower-pot is shown, to all appearance, empty), may also be used for the production of a card or cards.

[2] It is extremely difficult to construct the “pots” so that the pocket is workable on the concave inner surface, but if they are made four, five or six-sided the pocket folds against a flat surface and works perfectly.--ED.

PATTER APPROPRIATE TO THE FAIRY FLOWER-POTS

The flower-pots may be introduced as follows:

“Permit me to call your attention to one of my latest improvements. Conjurers have a foolish fancy, as I dare say you have noticed, for borrowing other people’s hats. If a conjurer wants to collect money from the air, he collects it in a hat. If he wants to make an omelette, he cooks it in a hat. If he wants to hatch a few chickens, he does it in a hat. And, for fear of accidents, he never uses his own hat, but always borrows somebody else’s. It’s very wrong of us. As Sir William Gilbert says, about some other forms of crime,

‘It’s human nature, P’raps. If so, O! isn’t human nature _low_.’

But we all do it. The worst of it is, we get so in the way of borrowing hats that we do it without thinking. You will hardly believe that one evening I came away from the theatre with two hats. One of them was my own. The other I had borrowed--from under the seat. You don’t believe it? Well, I said you wouldn’t. I always know!

“But that is not all. It isn’t only the bad effect on the conjurer’s own morals, and sometimes on the hat. People are so careless. They do leave such funny things in their hats. Cannon balls and birdcages; babies’ socks and babies’ bottles; rabbits and pigeons, and bowls of fish, and a host of other things. And just when you are going to produce some brilliant effect, you are pulled up short by finding some silly thing of that sort in the hat. It’s most annoying.

“So, after thinking it over, I made up my mind to do away with hats altogether. Of course I don’t mean for putting on people’s heads, but so far as conjuring is concerned, and it struck me that a pretty flower-pot, like this, would form a capital substitute.” (Show as one, the combined pots, inside and out.) “Much nicer than a hat, don’t you think? It is prettier, to begin with, and then again, you can see right through it, and make sure there is no deception. You see that at present the pot is perfectly empty.

“But no! I scorn to deceive you. I am like George Washington, except that I haven’t got a little axe. I cannot tell a lie. At least it hurts me very much to do so, and I don’t feel well enough to do it now. No! It is useless any longer to disguise it! The pot is _not_ really empty, for you see here is another inside it.” (Produce second pot.) “You wouldn’t have thought it, would you? In fact, you would never have known, if I hadn’t told you.

“Of course I could keep on doing this all the evening, but there wouldn’t be much fun in it, and no time would be left for anything else, so I will proceed at once to make use of the pots for a little experiment with cards.”

(Proceed with any trick for which the card mat may have been prepared.)

N. B. It will be taken for granted, in the description of tricks dependent upon the use of the flower-pots, that these have been already introduced, after the above or some similar manner.

ADHESIVE CARDS AND TRICKS THEREWITH

I believe I may safely claim that the device I am about to describe was, until I disclosed it some months ago in the _Magazine of Magic_, an absolute novelty. It consists in the preparation of one card of a pack (or, better still, of a spare card, to be substituted at need for its double), by rubbing one or other of its surfaces, shortly before it is needed for use, with diachylon, in the solid form.

We will suppose, in the first instance, that the _back_ of the card is so dealt with. The rubbing does not alter its appearance, but gives it a thin coating of adhesive matter, and if another card is pressed against the surface so treated, the two adhere, and for the time become, in effect, one card only, viz., the one whose face is exposed, the other having temporarily disappeared from the pack.

This renders possible many striking effects. To take an elementary example, let us suppose that the old-fashioned flat card-box, or some other appliance for magically producing a card, is loaded with, say, a seven of diamonds. The corresponding card is forced on one of the company, and taken back into the middle of the pack, on the top of the prepared card. The performer does not disturb or tamper with the pack in the smallest degree. He merely squares up the cards, and, pressing them well together, hands them to be shuffled, meanwhile calling attention to the card-box, which is shown apparently empty. He then asks the name of the drawn card, announcing that it will at his command leave the pack and find its way into the box.

He now counts off the cards, showing the face of each as he does so, and leaving it exposed upon the table. The seven of diamonds has disappeared, being in fact hidden behind the prepared card, which we will suppose to be in this instance the queen of clubs.

Leaving the cards outspread upon the table, the performer opens the card-box, and shows that the missing card has somehow found its way into it.

In the hands of a novice, the trick might end at this point; but even a novice may very well carry it a stage further. To do so, he will in the first place replace the card in the box, in such a manner that it can be again “vanished.” In gathering together the outspread cards, he takes care to place the queen of clubs on top of the rest. As this, however, is the double card, the actual top card is of course the missing seven of diamonds. It is an easy matter, in handling the cards, to detach this from the queen of clubs, and, after a little “talkee-talkee,” show that it has left the box and returned to the pack.

The above would, however, be much too crude and elementary a proceeding to commend itself to the expert. In the trick next to be described the same expedient is employed after a more subtle fashion.

THE MISSING CARD

The requirements for this trick consist of two complete packs of cards and an extra card, which we will suppose to be the knave of diamonds. One of the two packs, which we will call _A_, has on top a card made adhesive at the back as above described, and its own knave of diamonds at the bottom. The other pack, _B_, is wholly unprepared.

The first step is to offer pack _B_ to be shuffled, and when it is returned to palm on to it the spare knave of diamonds, after which the pack is left temporarily for the time being in view on the table. The next step is to pick up pack _A_, and force from it the knave of diamonds, receiving it back on top of the prepared card, passed to the middle of the pack for its reception. Squaring up the pack and applying the necessary pressure, the performer offers it to be shuffled, meanwhile delivering himself to something like the following effect.

“Before going further, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to remember exactly what has been done. A card has been chosen from this pack. It has been put back again, the cards have been shuffled, and you can all bear witness that I have not touched them since. Nobody knows, except the lady who chose it, what card she chose. Whereabouts in the pack it may be at this moment not one of us knows, even the lady herself. I can assure you truthfully that _I_ don’t, but I propose, by force of magic, to compel that card, whatever it may be, to leave that pack altogether, and pass into the other one. Nay, more than that, I shall compel it to place itself at any number in that pack you like to name. What shall we say? Seventh? Good.

“Now please bear in mind that that pack, like the other, has just been shuffled, and that I have not touched it since. It is therefore manifestly impossible that I should know the position of any card in it. Of course, as there is already a knave of diamonds in the pack, it is just possible, though scarcely likely, that that card may have been shuffled into the seventh place. We will see.”

He counts off cards from the top of the pack on to the table, _faces down_, not exposing any card till he comes to the seventh, which he holds up so that all may see it. “Now, Madam, is that your card? I don’t want to know the name of it yet. It is not your card? I did not suppose it was, for the chances were over fifty to one against it, but you never can tell!”

He gathers up the cards counted off, and without disturbing their order, replaces them on the top of the pack, thereby bringing the original top card to the seventh place.

“Now please observe that I do not touch these cards again till the miracle has actually happened. I will now ask you, madam, to be good enough to name your card. The knave of diamonds, you say? That is all right. Had you taken the knave of clubs, I should have feared for the success of my experiment, for that knave always gives trouble, if he can; but the knave of diamonds is a very gentlemanly card, and I have no doubt that he will readily oblige. Now, Percy (perhaps you didn’t know his name was Percy), I want you to leave the pack you are in, and place yourself seventh in the other pack. Go at once, like a good boy. Start at the top, and go straight down. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!

“I should think he has arrived by this time. Let us make sure first, though, whether he has really left the other pack.”

Picking up pack _A_, he counts the cards slowly, not looking at them himself, but showing the face of each before laying it on the table. “Stop me, please, if you see the knave of diamonds.” He counts, “one, two, three, four,” and so on to the end. “Fifty-one cards only! Then there is one card missing, and as you have not seen the knave of diamonds, and as all the other cards are here, it is plain that it is he who has left the pack. We have still to find out whether he has obeyed orders, and gone over to the other pack. You wished him to place himself seventh, I think. I won’t touch the cards myself. Will some gentleman come forward, and count them off for me?” (This is done.) “The seventh card is really the knave of diamonds, is it not?

“But, you may say, this might be the knave properly belonging to this pack. Please look through the pack, sir, and if there has been no deception you will find the proper knave in some other part of it. You have found the other knave? Then you will admit that that proves clearly that this first one is the identical card the lady drew.”[3]

It would be easy to give other combinations dependent on the use of the adhesive principle, but these may safely be left to the ingenuity of the reader. If the face, instead of the back, of a given card be treated with the adhesive, that card will itself disappear from the pack. By due adjustment two adhering cards may (the one slightly overlapping the other) be made to form a temporary long or wide card.

[3] A somewhat more elaborate trick of mine on the same principle (_The Elusive Card_) will be found described in the _Magazine of Magic_, Vol. II, pp. 13, 47.

NOVEL APPLICATIONS OF THE “BLACK ART” PRINCIPLE

BLACK ART MATS AND BLACK ART PATCHES

The Black Art Table has long since established itself in the affections of the conjurer as one of his most effective aids. At a stage performance the presence of one or more such adjuncts is almost a matter of course, but the drawing room performer finds many occasions when, for one reason or another, the use of such an aid is precluded. Some wizards, as a matter of personal convenience, decline to burden themselves with more artistic luggage than can be bestowed in an ordinary handbag. Others, again, hold (and not without reason) that the use of a special table, imported by the performer himself, tends to discount the marvel of his show; as being suggestive of that “preparation” which every artistic conjurer is anxious to disclaim. It is no doubt an easy matter to arrange a good enough programme for which the aid of “black art” is not needed, but this means the exclusion not merely of a valuable auxiliary, but of many of the most striking magical effects.

I have pleasure in introducing to the reader a substitute which, though its capabilities fall a good deal short of those of the actual table, will answer many of its purposes, apart from special merits of its own, and which has the further recommendation of exceptional portability. It may be appropriately entitled the Black Art Mat. It consists of a piece of Bristol board of size and shape suitable to the purpose for which it is to be used, covered on both sides with black velvet and edged with narrow ornamental braid or binding. The one side has no speciality, but the other has a flat pocket across one or more of its corners; as indicated in Fig. 8. In the case of a mat of small size the pocket may extend diagonally from corner to corner as in Fig. 9. The edge of the pocket may be braided if preferred (the rest of the surface being ornamented to correspond) but if the mat be well made this is not necessary. The mouth of each pocket is made slightly “full,” and is held open a quarter of an inch or so by means of a stiffening along its inner edge. By having the mill-board foundation cut in half before it is covered, the mat may be made to fold like a chessboard for greater portability.