The conjurer, having turned up his sleeves, dips his right hand into the water, and stirs it up. Then, displaying his empty hand to the audience, he dips it into the water and takes out a handful of the wet sands and holds it up so that the audience can see it. He returns the "mud" to the bowl and washes off any sand from his hands.
Once more he dips his hand into the bowl and takes it out closed. Picking up a glass goblet with his other hand, he holds it under his right hand from which dry red sand slowly trickles. When the hand is empty he opens it, shows it to the audience, and puts the goblet down. Then he washes his hands in the bowl, and repeats the performance with the white sand and the blue, so that at the end of the trick the audience can see the sands in the three goblets. At the conclusion of the trick he can pour all the water with the sand "mud" into another vessel and thus show once more that the bowl is not prepared in any way for the trick.
This splendid effect is brought about by very simple means. Most conjurers hold the opinion that the best tricks are simple; this one is both simple and easy.
The principal secret consists in the preparation of small quantities of the different sands. First of all a quantity of sand is dyed red and a similar quantity is dyed blue, and both are left to dry. While they are drying the conjurer can prepare the white sand.
Fig. 11
Place a small quantity in an old frying-pan and put it over the fire until it is thoroughly hot. Then drop in a small piece of tallow candle. When the grease melts stir it well into the sand, so that every grain is covered. Then take the sand off the fire and press it down into little moulds.
As sands of three different colours are to be used in the trick it follows that the prepared sands must be put in moulds of three different shapes, because the conjurer merely has to feel in the water for the particular blocks of sand that he requires at each dip. The white sand can be put into little round, flat moulds, about as large as four halfpennies stuck together. When these little round blocks of prepared sand are cool they will be perfectly hard and waterproof.
The red sand can be placed in small square moulds and the blue sand in oval or round moulds; the shapes are immaterial so long as the conjurer remembers them.
The bags can be of paper. To prepare for the trick, turn one of the bags upside down and push the bottom of it inwards. Then place two or three of the blocks of sand of the right colour in the cavity at the bottom of the bag. Then turn the bag over and fill it with ordinary sand of the same colour.