Water Wizardry: A collection of tricks in which water is the chief agent

by Arthur Ainslie

Fig. 2

There is a kind of first cousin to this trick. Take two claret glasses. Half fill one of them with water and place the empty glass on the top of it. The trick is to pour the water into the empty glass and drink it, but you must use only one hand and you are not to touch the top glass with it.

Pick up the two glasses together by taking the bottom one by the stem (it is just as well to practise this with your own glasses and to stand over a bed during the rehearsal) and then pull off the top one with your mouth and hold it firmly between the teeth. Then you can pour the water into it. Still holding the other glass in your hand place the glass with the water on the top of it, and then, holding the two together, you can drink the water.

A Steady Hand

You can use one of the glasses for this trick. Half fill it with water and then, tilting the glass, try to balance it on the edge of the foot. With care and a little practice you can accomplish this feat by sheer skill, but you simplify it considerably if you take the precaution to slip a match under the table-cloth before you begin. If you are doing the trick at a dinner table it is just possible that some evil-disposed person may notice the little bump in the tablecloth caused by the match, and so you prepare for that charge by tying a piece of cotton to the match. The end of the cotton hangs down below the table-cloth close to your hand, and directly you have done the trick you quietly pull the match away, and then you can challenge Mr. Know-all to do the trick himself.

In the Soup

The soup in this case is represented with water, and you can use the same glass; it should be about half full of water. Lay a piece of nice shiny cardboard on the top of it—a piece about eight inches square is large enough—and on the cardboard and exactly over the glass stand a cork. On the top of the cork balance a tangerine orange. Now, if you give a sharp knock to the cardboard with your right hand the cardboard should go skimming away, taking the cork "off the premises" with it, and the tangerine should drop into the water.

This feat appears to be very difficult, but it is not; the weight of the tangerine helps you. When you can do the trick every time with one glass you can try it with two glasses—using a larger piece of cardboard, of course—and then three glasses, and, finally, four. It is not so easy then.

This feat is often performed on the stage, but eggs—or, rather, imitation eggs—are used in place of the tangerines, and the trick in that form is difficult because the eggs are light. Don't follow up your stroke when you are hitting the cardboard away. Just give it a sharp knock and bring the hand to a standstill with a jerk. Look around you before you do the trick; otherwise, you may hurt somebody with the flying piece of cardboard. To avoid any accident of this kind get a friend to stand a little to the side of your table so that he may catch the cardboard.

When the trick is performed on the stage a tea-tray is generally used, and the raised edge of the tray adds considerably to the difficulty of the trick.