He can continue this pleasant appearance of acquiring wealth for ten minutes, or as long as he can devise various methods of appearing to clutch it, till the number with which he stored his left hand is exhausted.
He may then request some one to count out, audibly, into a plate the coins collected in the hat, which will coincide with the number he has appeared to collect so magically from various sources. When adroitly done, this trick is very pleasing and effective.
TRICK 27.—To Furnish Ladies With a Magic Supply of Tea or Coffee, at their selection, From One and the Same Jug.
PREPARATION.
Have a metal jug to hold not less than three pints. It must be constructed with two compartments in the lower part of it, holding about a pint and a quarter each, and these must each have a pipe connected with the spout of the jug and another pipe connecting with its handle, and in the handle a small hole about the size of a letter—o—in this print. These lower compartments must be filled with good tea and coffee before the jug is produced.
The upper chamber or compartment, like the upper portion of a patent coffee-pot, must have no communication with the lower divisions, and must be well closed also at the top with a tin cover, closely fitting. Have half a dozen small tea-cups and half a dozen small coffee-cups ready on a tray.
Begin the trick by placing openly in the upper compartment coffee-berries and tea, mixing them together. Take up, as a sudden thought, an old blacking bottle, and pretend to pour from it into the jug, to furnish highly-colored liquid to improve the coffee; and a little gunpowder, about a teaspoonful, may be fired off over the mixture to make the tea strong. Wave your wand over the jug.
Then you may address the ladies: inform them that the ingredients are well mixed, and invite them to name which they will prefer, “tea or coffee,” as you can produce either at their command from the same jug.
Get some friend to hand the cups, while you follow him, and, by unstopping the holes in the handle for admitting air upon the coffee or tea, the one of them that each lady names will flow out from the spout of this magic jug.