The spinning handkerchief is a great favorite with jugglers. A handkerchief is borrowed, thrown in the air and caught on the end of a whirling stick held by the juggler, when the handkerchief spreads out to its full size and commences to spin around rapidly. The secret is that in the end of the stick a needle is inserted about one-quarter of an inch, leaving the sharp end out. When the handkerchief is caught on the end of the whirling stick the needle point passes through it, thus preventing its falling off the stick, which is rapidly whirled around, and the handkerchief will spread out and spin about on the end of the stick.
Fig. 46.—The Spinning Handkerchief.
Jugglers are very partial to tricks performed with eggs, and spinning an egg on its smaller end is a trick they are almost sure to perform. It is impossible to spin a raw egg; so our juggler uses a hard-boiled one, and spins it on its small end in a shallow japanned tray. If the tray is kept gently moving in a small circle in the opposite direction to that in which the egg is spinning, the latter will continue to spin as long as desired. (Fig. 47.)
Fig. 47.—Spinning an Egg.
The egg spinning trick is usually followed by a balancing trick in which a playing card is balanced upon a small wand, and an egg is then balanced on a corner of the card. This trick usually calls forth a great pretension of skill on the part of the performer, when, in reality, no skill whatever is required.
Fig. 48.—Balancing Card and Egg on Wand.
The wand is of ebony, or some dark wood, and about three inches from one end is a small hole. The egg is made of wood, painted white, and with a small hole in one end. The card is composed of two cards glued together, with a fine steel wire between them, running diagonally from corner to corner of the card, with the ends of the wire projecting about a quarter of an inch. The prepared egg is on a plate with several ordinary eggs, and the card is placed on a pack of common cards. The wand is held in one hand, the card taken in the other and apparently balanced on one corner on the wand; but in reality the wire point is placed in the hole in the wand. Now the assistant passes the prepared egg to the juggler, who carefully balances it upon the corner of the card; that is, slips the hole in the end of the egg over the wire point projecting from the card.