The Long Pudding.
The following is a famous feat among those mountebanks who travel the country with quack doctors. This pudding must be made of twelve or thirteen little tin hoops, so as to fall one through another, and little holes should be made at the biggest end, so that it may not hurt your mouth; hold it privately in your left hand, with the hole end uppermost, and, with your right hand, take a ball out of your pocket, and say, “if there be any old lady that is out of conceit with herself, because her neighbors deem her not so young as she would be thought, let her come to me, for this ball is a certain remedy;” then seem to put the ball into your left hand, but let it slip into your lap, and clap your pudding into your mouth, which will be thought to be the ball that you showed them; then decline your head, open your mouth, and the pudding will slip down to its full length; with your right hand you may strike it into your mouth again; after having done this three or four times, you may discharge it into your hand, and put it into your pocket without any suspicion, by making three or four wry faces after it, as though it had been too large for your throat.