PREPARATION.
Have a quarter of your own secreted in your right hand. Then borrow two handkerchiefs, and a quarter and a penny, from any one in the audience. Tell the lender to mark or accurately observe them, so that he will know them again. In placing them on the table, substitute your own quarter for the borrowed one, and conceal the borrowed one in your palm.
MEMORANDUM.
It is better to use things borrowed than coin of your own. Still, the conjuror should provide himself with articles requisite to display any trick, or otherwise much delay may occasionally arise while borrowing them.
Commence the trick by pointing out where the quarter and the penny are lying on the table. Take up the penny and show it openly to all. Then take up one of the handkerchiefs, and while pretending to wrap up the penny in it, substitute in its place the borrowed quarter which you had concealed in your palm, and ask one of your friends to feel that it is enfolded in the handkerchief, and bid him hold the handkerchief enclosing it above his head. Ask him if he has got the penny there safely. He will reply that he has.
Then take up your own quarter which was laid upon the table; pretend to wrap it up in the second handkerchief, but adroitly substitute the penny, (which you concealed in your palm while wrapping up the first handkerchief.) Ask some friend to hold it up above his head, indulging in some facetious remark. Slip your own quarter into your pocket. Clap your hands or wave your wand, saying, “Change.” Tell your friends to unfold their handkerchiefs. They will be astonished to find that the quarter and penny have changed places.
TRICK 6.—Another trick with the dime, handkerchief, and an orange or lemon.
PREPARATION.
Have an orange or lemon ready, with a slit made in its side sufficiently large to admit the dime easily; and have in your pocket a good-sized silk handkerchief with a dime stitched into one of its corners.
Borrow a marked dime. Take out your handkerchief, and while pretending to wrap this dime in the handkerchief, conceal it in your palm, and take care that the one previously sewn into the corner of the handkerchief can be felt easily through the handkerchief. Giving it to one of your friends, tell him to feel that it has the dime in it, and to hold it up over his head firmly. While giving these directions to your friend, the dime that is in your palm must be transferred to your pocket, and introduced into the slit of the orange. Then bring the orange out of your pocket, and place it on a table; you will keep the slit on the side away from the audience.