Part 9

I use two tubes of stiff cardboard, each about four inches long by one and a half in diameter. One of these is just a plain tube with no speciality about it. The other has a piece of fine wire crossing it midway from side to side, and taking the form of a half hoop, as shown in Fig. 29, the ends serving as pivots on which it moves freely. On the outside, one of its ends is turned down vertically, forming a tiny switch or handle. The normal tendency of the halfhoop is to hang downward across the tube (thereby closing it to the passage of a ball) but a touch of the finger, moving the little switch to right or left, raises the loop to a horizontal position against one or other of the sides of the tube, when it no longer offers any obstacle to the passing of the ball. The wire used is so thin that with the halfhoop lying against its side a spectator may safely be allowed to look through the tube even at a very short distance, without fear of his perceiving the presence of the wire.

The requirements for the trick, all told, are as follows:

(1) The wand. (2) The plain tube. (3) The trick tube. (4) Two white balls. (5) A red ball. (6) A lighted candle. (7) A small red silk handkerchief.

One of the white balls must be vested or otherwise so placed as to be ready for production from the wand. The second white ball and the red ball are stowed in the pochettes, one on each side. The faked tube may be vested and exchanged for the plain one during the journey back to the table after the dummy has been tendered for inspection; the latter being dropped into the profonde. These however are matters which the expert will arrange after his own fashion. If the performer, not being an expert, doubts his ability to “change” the tubes neatly during the transit, he may suppress the plain tube altogether and commence at once with the exhibition of the faked tube from the platform, but the omission makes the trick less convincing.

We will suppose that the performer goes for the maximum effect and advances offering the dummy tube for inspection. The patter I suggest for the trick in this form runs as follows:

“I have here, ladies and gentlemen, a hollow tube. It is not uncommon for tubes to be hollow, but this one is, if anything, even hollower than usual. I should like some lady or gentleman to examine it carefully and testify that it is just a plain ordinary tube with absolutely no deception of any sort about it. If it was not so, you may be sure I should hardly venture to let you examine it. You can see through it, hear through it, or blow through it. You are satisfied? Then I will show you a curious little experiment with it.”

During the return to the table the dummy is exchanged for the trick tube.

“I call the experiment I am about to show you ‘The Mystery of Mahomet.’ I gave it that name because it was Mahomet who suggested the idea to me. I don’t mean personally. I didn’t know him. In point of fact he did not give me the idea till after he had been dead for some years. This sounds peculiar, but I will explain.

“When Mahomet died he wasn’t buried like other people. His coffin was placed in a mosque, where it hangs in the air like a captive balloon, about twenty feet up, resting on nothing at all. I am not certain as to the exact height from the ground, but that is what the Moslems say, and they would hardly tell a story about a little thing like that. It has always been a mystery what keeps the prophet up aloft. Some say it is done by mesmerism, some say by magnetism, and one old gentleman declared it was done by mormonism. No doubt, when you come to think of it Mahomet was a bit of a Mormon. But they are all wide of the mark. As a matter of fact the coffin rests on a slab of compressed air. It’s quite simple, when you know it. I haven’t a coffin handy, but by means of this little tube I can show you the effect of the same principle on a smaller scale.

“As some of you have not had the opportunity of personally examining the tube I should like to prove to you in the first place that it is really what it appears to be, a simple cardboard cylinder, open from end to end, and as free from deception as I am myself.

“Proof 1.” (Wand dropped through tube on to table.)

“Proof 2.” (Tube held in front of candle showing flame through it.“)

“Proof 3.” (Tube dropped over candle as in Fig. 30, or spun on wand, held horizontally as in Fig. 31; the halfhoop in each case being made to lie against the side of the tube.)

“I have here a little ball, of such a size that it passes easily through the tube.”[17] The ball is allowed to fall through, from the one hand to the other.

“Now I will place the tube upright on the table and drop the ball in once more. Where is it now? On the table, you say. Quite right: here it is.” (Lift tube, closing it, and placing it on end beside ball.) “But now I take a few handfuls of air and press them well down into the tube” (makes believe to do so), “and I drop the ball in again. This time you see it does not fall through. As a matter of fact it has stopped halfway, resting on the compressed air in the tube.” (Lift tube, showing that the ball has not passed through. After replacing the tube switch the wire loop to the horizontal position, allowing the ball to drop inside the tube.) “I think there can be no doubt that this is the way Mr. Home, the medium, managed to float about with his head in the air and his feet on the mantelpiece. All that was needed was a few pints of compressed air in his tail-pockets. It’s quite simple, when you know how it’s done.

“Of course, as the tube is open at the top, the effect doesn’t last very long. The compressed air gradually expands again and becomes too thin to support the ball any longer. I dare say by this time it has done so.” (Lift tube, exposing ball, and re-closing tube). “Yes, here it is.”

“I can keep the air from escaping to a certain extent, because I happen to have a very strong won’t. A strong will is a good thing to have, but sometimes a strong won’t is even more useful. Once again I will fill the tube with compressed air.” (Make believe to do so, then pick up the closed tube.) “I drop the ball in again, and this time it will remain suspended till I permit the compressed air to escape.” (Pick up tube, holding it vertically a few inches above the table.) “Say when you would like the ball to fall. Now? Good! I withdraw my strong won’t and the ball falls at once.” (Switch loop, allowing it to do so, then pass tube, closing it, to opposite hand and load into it duplicate ball at top; then replacing tube on table.)

“Now, by way of variety, we will try compressing the ball instead of the air.” (Pick up ball left on table and make believe to transfer it to the opposite hand. Then, with the left hand empty, make pretence of crushing it into the hand.) “The ball is now resolved into its component atoms. You didn’t see them go? No, of course you didn’t. For the time being they are dematerialised: but the compressed air in the tube will soon solidify them again.” (Lift tube, keeping ball suspended.) “It has not got solid yet, but we shall not have long to wait.” (After a few moments again lift tube, opening it and allowing ball to pass through.) “Here is the ball, now as solid as before.”

Transfer tube closed to opposite hand and in so doing load in red ball at top. In replacing tube on table open and close it again, so that the ball shall fall, but shall rest within the tube on the table.

“Now I will show you another curious effect. A ball which has been dematerialised in that way becomes very sensitive to colour. I will just give the ball a rub with this red silk handkerchief and drop it into the tube again.” Drop in white ball after rubbing, keeping tube closed; then raise it and show red ball at bottom.

“Here it is again, you see, but it has taken the colour of the handkerchief and is now a rosy red, a sort of maiden’s blush; the blush of a very shy maiden. Unfortunately maiden’s blush is not a fast colour, unless it’s the wrong kind; the kind that’s rubbed in with a powder puff. This kind soon gets pale again. I rub the ball again, this time with a white handkerchief, and again drop it into the tube.”

Drop in red ball, tube closed, lift and show white ball, under cover of its appearance transferring tube to opposite hand and allowing red ball to run back into palm to be got rid of a moment later.

“I think I heard a lady say, ‘Where is the red ball?’ This is the red ball, at least it was the red ball a moment ago. There is no other, for, as you see, the tube is empty.”

Again drop tube over candle as in Fig. 30. Pass ball from hand to hand and finally make believe to swallow it, meanwhile dropping it into the profonde.

“After being treated like this the ball becomes so volatile that I used to be always losing it. But I never lose it now. I just swallow it and then I know just where it is when I want it. It saves a lot of trouble.”

[16] A description of this trick will be found in _The Magician_ for March, 1914.

[17] If preferred the ball instead of being taken openly from the table, may be produced from the wand after the fashion familiar in the Cup and Ball trick, but on the whole I think this is best omitted.

THE BEWILDERING BLOCKS

The blocks which give its title to this trick are inch-square wooden cubes, three in number, as illustrated in Fig. 32. Each is coloured black on two of its opposite sides; these in use being made top and bottom. The four remaining sides are in the case of one block red, of another white, and of a third blue. The only other item of apparatus known to the spectators is a square cardboard tube, as depicted in Fig. 33. This is about five inches long, and of such dimensions laterally as to let either block slide by its own weight easily through it, but no more. All four items may be freely submitted to inspection, for in this case appearances are not deceitful. Both the blocks and the tube are no more and no less than they seem to be.

In exhibiting the trick, the tube is placed upright on the table, and the three blocks are dropped into it one after another, the company being requested to note particularly the order in which they are inserted, which we will suppose to be in the first instance blue, then white, and lastly red, as shown without the tube in Fig. 32. It is clear that, once inserted, they cannot by any natural means alter their relative positions, but, strange to say, when they are again uncovered, the red block just inserted at the top is found to have passed to the bottom, the other two moving up accordingly.

This surprising effect is produced by the secret introduction into the tube of a fourth block of which the spectators know nothing. This, which we will call the “trick” block, is, like the rest, coloured black at the top and bottom; but of the remaining four sides two, contiguous to each other, are red, and the other two blue.

When the tube is handed back to the performer after inspection, before placing it on the table he secretly introduces the trick block into its lower end, privately noting against which sides of the tube the two _red_ faces will lie, and taking care in placing the tube upon the table that the angle formed by these two sides shall be to the front. The other three blocks are then, in accordance with the patter, dropped in from above, in the order shown in Fig. 32, resting, unknown to the spectators, on top of the trick block. When the performer lifts off the tube, which he does grasping it diagonally between thumb and finger at about an inch from the top, he does so with gentle pressure, thereby holding back the uppermost block within the tube, and exposing the two others with the trick block at the bottom, as indicated by Fig. 34.

I gave a description of this trick in the _Magician_ of February, 1914. The patter for its exhibition was based on a popular nursery legend, and as this mode of presentation won general approval from the juveniles I cannot do better than repeat it practically as there given. The needful working instructions will be found interspersed with the patter.

“What I am going to show you now is not a trick, or, if you can call it a trick, it is one that works itself, for you will see for yourselves that I have really nothing to do with it. It is just an illustration of the force of bad example.

“No doubt you have all heard of a young gentleman called Fidgety Phil. There is a little poem about him. It says:

‘Fidgety Phil Couldn’t keep still, Made his mother and father ill.’

“There are a lot more verses but I am sorry to say I don’t know them. However, these few lines are enough to show you what sort of a boy Fidgety Phil was. He was the kind of boy that wherever he is, he wants to be somewhere else. When he was standing up he wanted to sit down, and when he was sitting down he wriggled about on his chair till he was allowed to stand up again.

“These little blocks are all that are left of a box of bricks which are said to have belonged to Fidgety Phil and they show what even a box of bricks may come to if a bad example is constantly set before them. These three little bricks have got to be just as fidgety as Phil was himself. Anyhow, that is the only way in which I can account for their queer behaviour.

“Please have a good look at them, and see if you can discover anything peculiar about them. I can’t, myself.” (The blocks are handed for examination.) “They seem to me to be just ordinary bits of coloured wood, and this square tube is believed to have been a chimney pot belonging to the same set. I want you to notice particularly that the bricks are just the right size to fit closely in the chimney. They go in quite easily; but when they are once inside they can’t turn round, or turn over, or change places. But the curious thing is that though they can’t they _do_, as you will see presently.

“I place the chimney-pot here on the table, where you can see all round it, and I drop the three bricks into it one by one. Notice particularly the order in which I put them in. First, the blue. You heard it go down. Next, the white, and now, the red. Don’t forget. Blue at the bottom, white in the middle, and red at the top.

“Now, without my saying or doing anything, they will at once begin to shift about. They can’t keep still for more than a few seconds. When I lift off the chimney pot, you will find that they have changed places.” (It is lifted accordingly, performer holding back the uppermost block within it by gentle pressure on opposite angles of the tube, and exhibiting only the three lower blocks now as in Fig. 34.)

“There, as I told you, like Fidgety Phil, they couldn’t keep still. The white brick has climbed to the top, the red one has gone down to the bottom, and the blue one is now in the middle.

“We will try again. I will put the bricks in in just the same order, to make it easier for you to remember them.”

Performer has meanwhile allowed the red block, left in the upper part of the tube, to sink to the bottom, checked by the third finger, and replaces tube upright on table.

“As before, I drop in first the blue, then the white, then the red.” (This last being the trick block, care must be taken to keep its _red_ sides well to the front.)

“Again I lift off the chimney pot, and again you see, the bricks have changed places. White has come to the top, and red has gone to the bottom again.”

The trick block, which this time remained at the top, is now allowed to slide down to the bottom. The tube is again placed on the table, but so turned that the _blue_ sides of the block within it are brought to the front.

“I can’t tell you why the bricks behave in this way, but you can see for yourselves that _I_ have nothing to do with it. We will try it once more, and for a change I will put the red block in first, then the white and then the blue. That order will be easy to remember. Red, white and blue reckoning from the bottom upwards. Again I remove the cover. The same thing has happened again, but with a little difference. White has come to the top again, but blue has this time gone to the bottom.”

While attention is drawn to the new order of the blocks, the performer allows the ordinary blue one, now left in the tube, to slide out into his hand, and in picking up the others secretly substitutes this for the trick block, which is now at the bottom of the tube.

“Once more, ladies and gentlemen, here is the chimney pot, and here are the three bricks, for inspection by any one who cares to look at them. Perhaps some of you may be able to account for their remarkable behaviour. It’s a puzzle to me; but I never was good at guessing. My own idea is that they are haunted by the ghost of Fidgety Phil. If not, I give it up.”

AN “OD” FORCE

To avoid misconception, it may be well to state at once that the peculiar spelling of the word “od” in the above title is not a printer’s error. The explanation will be found in the patter, which is founded on a discovery claimed to have been made by a scientist at one time of world-wide renown, and the responsibility for so spelling the word rests with him. For programme purposes the reader is at liberty to re-name the trick according to his own fancy. “Mysterious Motion,” or “Moved by Magic” would fairly represent the effect produced, which consists in causing a borrowed coin to move automatically at the will of the operator, in various directions.

The requirements for the trick are as follows:

(1) The “tramway” whereon the coin is to be made to travel. This consists of a slab of wood thirteen inches long by four wide, and three-eighths of an inch thick and covered as to its upper side with fine black cloth. To the cloth-covered side of this is attached, by means of a screw at each corner, a parallelogram of brass or copper wire enclosing a space two inches wide. The four screws, which are likewise of brass, and which are of the round-headed kind, are within the parallelogram and serve to keep the wire extended. Midway at each end is another screw, driven in _outside_ the wire, in such manner as to make all taut. These last two screws, for a reason connected with the working of the trick, stand up a shade higher than the other four, but the difference is not great enough to be noticeable. See Fig. 35.

(2) A special “pull” carried on the person of the performer. This consists of a fine black thread, to one end of which is attached a weight travelling up and down the trouser leg, after the manner described (in connection with a self-suspending wand) at page 111 of “Later Magic.” In the present case, however, the weight is much smaller, being in fact just large enough to rather more than counterbalance the coin used in the trick, _plus_ the friction to be overcome by the thread in the working of the trick. The degree of such friction is an uncertain quantity, as it will largely depend on the nature of the operator’s underwear and its closeness to his own body. The precise weight most effective must be ascertained by previous experiment, and regulated accordingly.

It will be found convenient to use by way of weight a glass tube, closed at the bottom like a test-tube and loaded with buckshot, more or less in quantity according to the weight required. The mouth of the tube is closed by a cork, through which one end of the thread is passed, and secured on the under side by a knot and a spot of gum. When the minimum weight that will effectually serve the desired purpose has been ascertained, any vacant space above the leaden pellets should be filled with cotton wool (to prevent rattling) and the cork should then be cemented into the tube. If preferred, the wool may be interspersed among the buckshot.

The opposite end of the thread, which will be somewhere about thirty inches in length (this again being a point to be determined by experiment), is passed through the curled end of a good-sized safety pin. This, for use in the trick, is attached to the inside of the performer’s vest, just within the lowest part of the opening. To the free-end of the thread, after passing through the loop of the pin, is attached a disc of copper or zinc, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, against which, on one side, is pressed and flattened out a pellet of conjurer’s wax, in good adhesive condition. If the length of the thread has been duly regulated, the little disc will rest normally just within the vest, but can be drawn out the extent of a couple of feet or so, returning swiftly to its hiding place the moment it is released.

(3) A glass ball--professedly crystal.

(4) An ordinary match-box, empty.

Instructions for the working of the trick will be most conveniently given step by step with the patter, which may run as follows:

“In the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign, when the oldest of us here present were good little boys or girls, and the rest were not born or thought of, there lived a celebrated scientific gentleman, called the Baron von Reichenbach. I am sorry to say he was a German, but he couldn’t help it. As his father and mother were Germans, he had to be one too. It shows how careful children ought to be in the choice of their parents. He invented a lot of useful things, among them creosote and paraffin. Neither of them smells very nice, but they don’t trouble about that in Germany.

“Besides being a great chemist, Von Thingany dabbled in what are called the occult sciences, and he claimed to have discovered a new force (a sort of magnetism, only different) and which, he declared, pervaded every thing in nature, especially crystal. Directed by a strong will, like his own, or mine, it would do all sorts of wonderful things. It seemed to me that such a force would come in very handy for magical purposes, and I set to work to invent it over again, and I have at any rate produced something very like it. The Baron called his force ‘odd,’ but he spelt it ‘od,’ which is odd too. You must judge for yourselves whether my force is the same as his, and you can spell it which way you like.

“I have only been able so far to work up a very small amount of the force, say about six mouse-power, so it won’t turn tables, or lift pianos. I can only get it, so far, to move a small weight like a florin or a half-dollar, and that only for a very short distance. For greater conveniences I have made this little tramway for the coin to perform upon. These wires which you see are not for it to travel on, but merely to get more equal distribution of the force. There is nothing out of the way about it, nor with this ball, except that it is crystal. Examine both as much as you please.”

The two articles are accordingly offered for inspection. The performer takes back the tramway in the left hand, holding it by one end in such manner that it is gripped in the fork of the thumb, leaving the thumb itself comparatively free. Taking back the ball with the right hand and remarking “Now to develop the force,” he rubs it on his left coat-sleeve, and strokes the surface of the tramway two or three times with it.

“Having now established a proper degree of ‘oddity’ between the tram and the crystal, I will ask for the loan of a half-dollar (or florin as the case may be) marked in any way the owner pleases.”

He replaces the ball on the table, and in the act of again turning to the audience gets hold of the waxed disc and draws it away from the body, holding it clipped between the ends of the first and second fingers, the left thumb pressing the thread against the cloth top of the tramway, and acting for the time being (and indeed throughout the trick) as a brake neutralising at pleasure the pull of the weight.