Water Wizardry: A collection of tricks in which water is the chief agent

Book provided by the Whitchurch-Stouffville Library, as part of the Art Latcham Memorial collection on Magic.

The following tricks are suitable for informal performances. These tricks are easy, but I advise the amateur conjurer to try them over privately a few times before showing them to an audience. The first trick I call
Three tumblers, a jug of water, and a piece of stiff paper about eight inches by four are required. Pour the water into the tumblers until each is about half full. Be very anxious—before an audience—to see that there is the same quantity of water in each glass, not that this little detail has anything to do with the actual working of the trick, but it may lead people to think that it has—until they see you do the trick.
Now, place the paper on the edges of two of the glasses, forming a kind of bridge between them. Pick up the third glass and let it rest, while the hand still holds it, on the paper bridge. Naturally, the paper will sink down under the weight. Then you move the two glasses a little nearer to each other and try again, and again the paper bends under the weight of the glass you place on it.
You pretend to be in difficulties and encourage the knowing ones in your audience to jeer at you as you try the trick again and again. You explain that there is a way of resting the glass on the paper in such a way that the paper shall not sink down. Some brainy person will then say, Impossible! —or it is to be hoped that they will—because that will give you the opportunity of saying:
Thank you. I remember it now. 'Impossible' happens to be the name of the trick; thanks for giving me the clue. It won't be such a bad trick—will it?—if I make a bridge between these two glasses with this piece of paper and then place the other glass on the bridge. . . .
With the water still in the glass, says one of your victims.
Of course—with the water still in the glass.
Some members of your audience will be sure to say that it cannot be done; others will beg to be allowed to think it out. You will probably hear whispering: