THE PENETRATIVE RING.
Fasten one end of a needleful of silk, of the colour of a handkerchief, to the middle of the handkerchief, and to its hanging end tie a brass ring. Always keep the ring on your own side, so that no one can see it while you shake and rumple the handkerchief. Offer to send a ring through a cup and saucer and the table they are on.
Take the borrowed ring in your left hand, and keep it there; pretend to pass it to the right hand, and ask one of the party to step forward and hold the (mock) ring in the handkerchief. Now that the cup and saucer are empty, place the cup in the saucer at the centre of the table, and ask the person to hold the ring in the handkerchief over the cup. The party will hear the ring fall into the cup, yet at your command it passes into a hat, which you hold under the table. In so doing, you put the real ring into the hat. Cry out some cabalistic words, and negligently take the handkerchief. The party may inspect the cup and saucer, but there the sorcery does not lie. The hat has but to be held upside down for the ring to fall out on the table.
Fig. 35.
Variation.—By using a stocking instead of the handkerchief, and letting the mock ring in the toe be tied up by a string a little farther up around the foot, the feat may be likewise executed.
Variation.—Borrow a silk handkerchief from a gentleman, and a plain gold ring from a lady. Request some one to hold two of the corners of the handkerchief, and another to hold the other two, keeping them at full stretch. You next exhibit the ring to the company, and announce to them that you will make it pass through the handkerchief. You have substituted for the ring one made by bending a piece of wire into a circle of the same size, with one or both of the ends finely pointed. Placing your hand under the handkerchief with this duplicate, you press it against the centre of the handkerchief, and desire a third person to take hold of the ring through the handkerchief, and to close his finger and thumb through the middle of the ring, which proves that the ring has not been placed within a fold, as may have been hinted when you performed a similar trick. The holders of the corners of the handkerchief let go, while the holder of the ring retains his hold. Another person now grasps the handkerchief as tight as he pleases, three or four inches down, so tightly that the ring cannot possibly pass, and you request him to permit you to take the ring in your fingers. Cover your hands with a hat to prevent the company from seeing your operations, and pull the mock ring open, draw it through the handkerchief, and, putting the handkerchief through the real ring, which you have ready in your hand, you remove the hat and the piece of brass together. Rub out the hole marks with the false ring in a purse or stocking. The trick becomes still more easy, since it readily can be passed through the meshes without a trace of its passage.