THE MIRACULOUS SHILLING.
Provide a round box, the size of a large snuff-box, and likewise eight other boxes, which will go easily into each other, letting the least of them be of the size to hold a shilling. Observe that all these boxes must shut so freely that they may all be closed at once, by the covers accurately fitting within each other.
Previously to commencing your performance, fit the boxes within each other, and place them in a table drawer at another part of the room. You also fit the covers in the same manner, and lay them by the side of the boxes; you likewise provide a silk handkerchief, into one corner of which a shilling is sewed.
You now commence your operations, by borrowing a shilling, desiring the lender to mark it, that it may not be changed. Take this shilling in your right hand, and the handkerchief in your left, pretending to place the shilling in the centre of the handkerchief; instead of which, you put the corner of the handkerchief in which a shilling was sewed, as previously described, concealing the borrowed shilling in your right hand. You then desire the person to feel that the shilling is there, and tell him to hold it tight.
You now go to the drawer, and placing the borrowed shilling in the smallest of the boxes, you put on all the covers, by taking them in the centre between the fore-finger and thumb, to prevent their separation, and fit them on, by carefully sliding them along, and then pressing them down.
Having thus closed your boxes, you produce what appears to be a single box, and lay it on the table. You now ask the person, who still retains his hold of the shilling in the handkerchief, if he is sure that it is there. He will reply in the affirmative; you then request him to allow you to take the handkerchief, and having done so, you strike that part of the handkerchief containing the shilling on the box, and immediately shake out the handkerchief, holding it by two corners, and shifting it round so as to get the shilling within your grasp: it will thus appear that the shilling is no longer there. You desire the person to open the box, and hand it round, till the shilling be found; and when the last box is opened, and the shilling taken out, you ask the lender to state whether it is the one which he marked; to which he must, of course, reply in the affirmative.