The Invisible Coin.
“Is silver a visible or invisible thing?” What a singular question! You will reply, certainly silver is a visible thing. A good many poor creatures, however, are of a different opinion; and possibly they are not altogether wrong, as we are about to show.
Will you kindly lend me a quarter, having first marked it, that you may know it again. Very well! There is a little handkerchief which will serve for me to make the experiment I have promised you. In the middle of this handkerchief, as you will perceive, I will put the quarter, which you have marked with a small cross. I am only folding the handkerchief that the quarter may be well wrapped up in it; you can have no difficulty in recognizing its shape. However! You are suspicious! I will make an improvement. There, sir, hold the handkerchief yourself, first above the little parcel formed by the coin. You may touch it, and convince yourself that it is still in its place. Now, I take the handkerchief by the opposite corner, I draw it toward me, unfolding it entirely; I then turn it over, shake it, and wave it in the air, to convince you that the coin has disappeared. The fact is evident. But, did you see it go? No! Certainly, then, silver is sometimes an invisible body.
Which fact you may prove by the foregoing process, if you have a handkerchief in one corner of which a quarter dollar has been sewed. You appear to put the borrowed quarter in the middle of the said handkerchief; then, instead of this coin, which you retain in your hand, concealed between the fore and middle fingers, you fold the handkerchief making the little parcel in the middle with the quarter sewed in the corner, in a sort of hem, so that the coin is not seen, and cannot drop out. When you quickly pull the handkerchief out of the hand which held it, the illusion is complete.
As to the marked coin which it is easy for you to have put on the table, or in your pocket, you may make it reappear in a cup, a box, or anything else, which adds to the effect of the trick you have performed.