Part 3

Procure two small apples exactly alike, and in the bottom of one scoop out a hole large enough to hold a pile of three sixpences. Make a conical cover out of cartridge paper large enough to cover the apple and about nine inches in height. Obtain six sixpences, three of which place in a pile on an inverted glass goblet. Conceal the other three and the hollow apple in your left hand. Ask some one to examine the cover, and, on receiving it back, transfer it to your left hand and slip it over the apple. Then give the duplicate apple for examination, and, taking the cover by its lower part, and the apple concealed in it, place both over the three sixpences on the glass. Take the apple that has been examined, and put it under the table with your left hand, hold it between your knees, and say: "I command this apple to pass through the table and take the place now occupied by the three sixpences, and the sixpences to fall into my hand." Bring your left hand from under the table and show the coins, lift up the cover and show the apple on the glass. Then reverse the procedure. Cover the apple on the glass; place the three sixpences under the table; secure the apple held between your knees and roll it on the table; lift up the cover and hollow apple together, and, dropping the latter into your lap, show the former is empty. This trick should be performed sitting.

AN OBEDIENT SIXPENCE

Place two half-crowns (or pennies) on the table and a sixpence between them. Then cover the coins with an inverted wine-glass, the edges of the latter resting upon the larger coins. Challenge any one to remove the sixpence without touching the glass or the money. It is done very easily, and in an amusing manner. You have only to scratch the tablecloth with your finger-nail in the direction you wish the coin to come, saying: "Come hither, sixpence," and it will at once obey you.

COIN AND GLASS

Cover the mouths of two glasses with newspaper, by gumming it on them, and trim off the edges neatly.[A] Stand them inverted upon two pieces of newspaper in such a manner that the type on the paper over the glasses fairly corresponds with that on the paper on the table. Make two cones of newspaper to fit closely over each glass. Unobserved by the company, place a penny under the glass on your left, which will of course be concealed by the paper on the mouth of the glass. Then borrow a penny, and, placing the cone over the glass on your right, lift the latter covered by the former from the table; lay the borrowed penny on the newspaper, and cover with the glass and cone. You call attention to the fact that there is nothing under the other glass, and you then cover it with the second cone. You now tell the company that at your word of command the penny will leave one glass and travel invisibly over the table to the other glass. You lift the cone from the glass on your right, under which the borrowed penny was placed, and the coin is not to be seen. Then, lifting both the cone and glass together on your left, the concealed penny is brought into view. You now announce your intention of sending the penny back. Place the covered glass over the penny and replace the cover over the glass on your right. "One, two, three--go!" you exclaim and, lifting the cone off the glass on your left, the penny under it appears to have disappeared, and on removing the other glass, still covered by the cone, the borrowed penny will once more be seen. This trick can be worked with one glass only and the penny made to appear to drop through the table in your hand placed under the latter ready to catch it (the penny, of course, being already palmed in your hand); but the use of two glasses makes the trick more effective, and it can be repeated many times without fear of detection. The paper upon which the glasses stand can, of course, be examined; but the glasses when removed from the paper must be covered with the cones, or the paper cover on the mouth of each will be seen.

[A] This piece of apparatus neatly constructed can be obtained at a trifling cost at any of Messrs. Hamley Bros.' Conjuring Depôts, London.

A SIMPLE EXPERIMENT WITH FOUR SHILLINGS

Borrow four shillings; place one on the palm of each hand, and, holding the palms upward, close your fingers over them. Then request a member of the company to place the other two coins on the nails of your two middle fingers; and announce your intention of throwing a coin from one hand to the other, explaining it is rather a difficult feat to accomplish with your hands closed. Make one or two movements with your hands, and then, as if accidentally, drop the two shillings resting upon your nails upon the table. Apologising for your clumsiness, request some one to replace the coins on your nails, saying you will have another try. Now give your hands a jerk upward; open them and catch the coins on your nails, one in each hand, and tell the company you have accomplished your purpose and sent one coin flying invisibly through the air from one hand to the other. To verify your assertion open your hands and show three coins in one hand and only one in the other.

EXPLANATION.

When you make the first attempt, and appear to fail, in the upward movement of your hands you open them and allow the shilling resting upon the nail of your left hand to slip into the palm, while you permit the coin in the palm of your right hand to fall, with the one above it on the nail, on the table. If this is done neatly the company will suppose it is the two coins from the nails which have fallen. You now have two shillings in your left hand and none in your right. In the second attempt you have only to catch the shillings resting on your nails in the manner described, and on showing one shilling in your right hand and three in your left, your statement that one has travelled invisibly from one hand to the other will appear to be correct.

PUZZLE OF TEN HALFPENCE

Place ten halfpence in a row upon the table, then taking up any one of the series, place it upon another, with this proviso, that you pass over just two halfpence each time. Repeat this until there is not a single halfpenny left. Let the following figures represent the halfpence:--

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Place No. 4 upon No. 1; No. 7 upon No. 3; No. 5 upon No. 9; No. 2 upon No. 6; and No. 8 upon No. 10. A little practice will enable the reader to do this puzzle without referring to the figures.

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR WEALTH

Obtain three sixpences exactly alike, place one in your pocket and stick the other two with a small piece of wax under the edge of the table about an inch apart. After showing other tricks produce the sixpence from your pocket and show it to the company to prove it is an ordinary coin. Pull up your sleeves, and if the table has a cover turn it back. Place the coin on the table near the edge over the concealed sixpences, and showing your right hand is perfectly empty place your thumb over the coin and rub it vigorously backwards and forwards on the table. At the same time run your first and second fingers under the table, and securing one of the coins sticking there move it and the coin under your thumb simultaneously off the table, and pinching them together between your thumb and finger, say: "I will show you how to double your capital. I am going to rub this sixpence into two sixpences." Then showing your other hand is empty use the left thumb and finger to assist in the rubbing, and gradually separate the two coins and exhibit them. Then putting the sixpence with the wax in your pocket place the other one near the edge of the table and repeat the trick, saying: "See, I have now trebled my capital." Do not allow the company to examine the waxed coins.

A NEAT COIN TRICK

Procure three coins (pennies or half-crowns) exactly alike. Scratch a cross on two, and in the third bore a hole, in which fasten a short piece of black elastic cord. The other end of the elastic tie round your ankle, taking care that the coin does not hang below your trouser leg. Put one of the marked pennies in your left-hand trousers pocket and drop the other one unobserved into the pocket of some one present, or give it to a confederate to hold. Commence by borrowing a similar coin to those you are using and mark it like the others. Hold it between the thumb and finger of the right hand, and, giving it a twist, spin it on the table, then snapping your fingers over it, catch the edge of the coin and it will fly up your sleeve. Close your hand and say, "I will make this coin fly up my sleeve, travel round my back, and pass down my other sleeve." In the meantime you have secured the penny in your pocket and concealed it in your left hand. Open your right hand, showing it is empty, and then show the penny in the other hand. Lower your right hand, the penny in your sleeve will drop into it, and you can pocket it unobserved. Then ask for the loan of a cap and walking-stick. Request some one to hold the stick, while you hold the cap in your left hand. Pick up the penny with your right hand and pretend to place it on the floor. In doing so substitute the coin attached to the elastic, and, stretching the latter, hold the coin on the floor while you cover it with the cap, and ask the person who has the stick to place its end on the coin through the cap and keep it there until you tell him to move it. Then say, "I command this coin to leave the cap and pass into Mr. So-and-So's pocket. Move the stick, please, and then lift up the cap." On the removal of the stick the coin will fly under your trouser leg, and, of course, when the cap is lifted it is no longer on the floor. On the person whose name you mentioned putting his hand in his pocket he will find the coin you placed there, which you return to the person from whom you borrowed the penny.

A SUBTLE IMPROMPTU EFFECT WITH A COIN

EFFECT.--A coin dropped down the sleeve is slowly rubbed out through the cloth at the elbow.

REQUISITES.--Two coins exactly alike.

PRESENTATION.--First secretly place one of the coins between the buttons at the end of your left coat sleeve. Then stand with your right side towards spectators with the left arm extended, but slightly bent at the elbow. After having the coin examined, proceed to drop it down the sleeve of the extended arm, when it will fall to the elbow, and ask a spectator to feel that it is really there. Proceed by placing thumb of right hand on the side of sleeve toward spectators, and the fingers at the back, and rub the hand up and down the sleeve from the elbow to the cuff, and at the same time secretly gain possession of the coin between the buttons and bring it down behind the sleeve towards the elbow. Now with a slow pinching movement bring the coin down between the thumb and fingers and apparently out through the cloth of the sleeve, meanwhile moving the left arm up and down slightly. The coin left in the sleeve can be secretly got away by dropping the arm and allowing it to fall into the hand and then pocketed.

AN ORIGINAL COIN SWINDLE

Palm a halfpenny in your right hand and ask a friend (be sure he _is_ your friend) to lend you a shilling. Pick up a glass, invert it, and place the borrowed shilling on its bottom. Then ask your friend whether the coin is on the top or bottom of the tumbler. He will naturally look surprised at such a question; and you then say,--"Ah, I see you know the trick." Slide the shilling off the glass into your right hand, and as your friend holds out his hand to receive it back, drop the concealed halfpenny into it. The chances are ten to one that he will place the coin in his pocket without glancing at it. Unless you really desire to swindle your friend out of elevenpence halfpenny you will, of course, explain to him how he has been "had."

A CROSS

Place seven coins on the table, five in a row and one above and one underneath the centre coin. Then challenge any one to form a cross with these coins by moving two only, all the arms of the cross to have the same number of coins. After many attempts and failures show how easy it is to accomplish by taking the two coins at the ends of the row and placing them upon the coin in the centre.

SIMPLE TRICKS WITH HANDKERCHIEFS, RINGS, CANDLES, ETC.

A KNOT THAT CANNOT BE DRAWN TIGHT

Tie a single over-hand knot in a handkerchief, and holding it in your left hand, give one end to some one, telling him to pull at a given signal. As he is about to do so, slip your left thumb underneath and, letting go the end hanging over your left hand, allow the handkerchief to run between your thumb and forefinger, when it will come out without any knot (Fig. 4).