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 43 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.”