I shall now give directions for reproducing, before a juvenile audience, a trick that will carry us back to the primitive style of conjuring in old times. I cannot say that there is anything very scientific or elevated in it, but, if neatly and adroitly executed, it will tell very well with a youthful audience.
PREPARATION.
You must take care that your table be so placed that none of the spectators can see behind yourself or the table. You must provide yourself with some young pet of the juveniles, such as a puppy, a kitten, or any other small pet. The performer must either have some little bag hanging under his coat-tails, or some provision for concealing the little animal behind him, or in a drawer before him; so that there will be no chance of any of the audience seeing it before the proper time. He must have ready also a penny, or any coin.
To begin the exhibition of the trick. Standing with all the nonchalance you can assume, and placing one or both your arms behind your back, you may say, “For a variety, I will challenge one of my young friends to come and try which of us will succeed best in a few tosses of this penny.”
Induce some young person to come to the front of your table, and tell him to bring forward his hat. Ask him to toss first with the cent and put the hat over it, while you will guess “heads” or “tails.” Say it shall be seen who is most successful in five guesses. After he has tossed up twice, you can take the penny, and say, “Now, I will vary the method of tossing. You shall name now which you choose, ‘heads’ or ‘tails.’”
Toss up the penny, and while attention is occupied with this, and he is looking to see which is uppermost, heads or tails, you withdraw your left hand from behind you, holding the little animal you have concealed, and slipping it into the hat, and turning the hat down over it, exclaim, “Stay, I mean to pass the penny through the hat upon the table, and the whole affair shall be settled by the result of the present toss. You shall see the heads or tails on the table.”
By Pass 1, pretend to place the penny on the hat, but retain it in your right hand. Say, “Fly, pass, and quickly.” Lift the hat, and show both head and tail on the little animal or pet there concealed.
If you should have had a Guinea pig, you must make the guesses go on till your adversary guesses “tails,” and then it will make a good laugh to say, “He has won, and he had better now take it up by the tail.”
TRICK 13.—To cook pancakes or a flat plum cake in a hat, over some candles.
REQUISITE PREPARATION.