Sleight of Hand: A Practical Manual of Legerdemain for Amateurs & Others

by Edwin Thomas Sachs

Fig. 20.

Knives, I think I may say, are also tolerably common articles, and some good tricks are performed with them. Take a cheese knife and four tiny squares of paper. Stand facing your audience, however small it may be, and, wetting the papers separately, stick two on each side of the blade, taking care that the positions on both sides correspond as nearly as possible. Hold the knife before you in the fingers of the right hand ([Fig. 19]), and in such a position that only one side of the blade is visible. With the thumb and finger of the left hand remove the piece of paper nearest the handle, and, putting your hand behind your back, make a feint of throwing it away, without actually doing so. Now, with a rapid movement, cause the knife to describe a half circle in the air still with the same side uppermost; but the position of the hand will be slightly altered ([Fig. 20]), which will lead the audience to think that the knife has been actually turned over. Barely before the movement is completed a finger of the left hand must be upon the spot recently occupied by the piece of paper, as if taking off a second piece from the opposite side. The first piece, which has all the time been in the left hand, is thus made to do duty twice. The second time, it is dropped on the floor in full view of the audience, accompanied by the remark, "that makes the second piece." Now remove the other piece of paper, and repeat the manœuvre executed with the first piece, taking the greatest care that only one side of the blade is visible, and that the finger of the left hand, with the concealed paper, is down upon the vacant spot before the spectators' eyes can rest there. Having ostensibly removed the fourth and last piece of paper, the knife is supposed to be empty, which you boldly declare to be the case, making a rapid backward and forward movement with the blank side to prove it. You then say you will cause the papers to re-appear upon the knife instantaneously. All you have to do is to put your hand behind your back and reverse the position of the knife so that the side of the blade with the two pieces of paper still remaining upon it is uppermost. Bringing the knife again to the front, make another quick backward and forward movement, saying, "Here are the papers back again on both sides as before," and then, without any further preliminaries, draw the blade through the fingers and cause the two papers to fall upon the floor. If this final movement is not executed, the audience will, when they have recovered their senses, point to the two papers which you dropped on the floor during the performance of the trick, and want to know why they are there and not on the knife. Continued rapidity of motion is what is required for the success of this trick. There must be no halting in the middle or hesitation of any kind, to avoid which practice in private will be essential, as, indeed, it will be with every trick worth doing at all.

Borrow a light penknife, and take care that it is not too sharp, and has a good deep notch at the haft. You are previously prepared with about two feet of very fine black silk, one end of which is attached to a button of your vest, the other end being furnished with a loop large enough to pass over a finger. This can either be wound round the button, or can hang loosely, with the free end looped up. I prefer the latter method, and have never found it lead to any inconvenience, which at first sight it appears extremely likely to do. Also borrow a hock or champagne bottle; pint size preferred. First send round the knife to be examined, and, whilst the examination is going on, get the loop of the silk over the end of one of the fingers of the left hand. When the knife is returned to you, and not before, give the bottle to be examined, and distract the attention of the audience by allusions to the "departed spirits" of the bottle, and admonitions to be sure and see that the bottom does not take out. By the time the bottle comes back you have slipped the loop over the blade of the knife and allowed it to catch in the notch, where cause it to remain. If the knife is a sharp one, extra caution must be observed, or the silk will be severed. This actually happened to me on one occasion, so I speak from direful experience. By sending the bottle away to be cleaned, I gained sufficient time to tie another loop in the silk, and went on as usual; but the incident was not a particularly cheerful one taken altogether—there was too much "glorious uncertainty" about it. Take the knife upside down, i.e., with the sharp edge of the blade uppermost, between the finger and thumb, hold the silk sufficiently taut to keep the loop in position by means of the other fingers, and drop the whole into the bottle. This must not be done with the bottle in a perpendicular position (in which case the loop will probably either break or slip off the knife), but with it inclined at an angle of about 45 deg. ([Fig. 21]). This will allow the knife to slide down at a safe speed and yet reach the bottom with a good "thud." Having satisfied yourself that everything is in order, hold the bottle perpendicularly in the left hand between the audience and yourself, and about breast high. Make use of any cabalistic nonsense you please, and then cause the knife to rise from the bottle by the action of moving it from you and towards the audience. The action of raising the bottle must be but sparsely indulged in, if at all, as it is easily noticed; not so the horizontal motion. When brought to the mouth of the bottle the knife quietly topples over on to the floor, whence allow it to be picked up by a spectator, who will not require much admonition to examine it. Also send the bottle round again; and get rid of the silk as soon as you can after the trick is done. It will be noticed that I have directed the performer to use a hock or champagne bottle. The reason for this will be obvious after once trying the experiment with a bottle having an abrupt shoulder, such as an ale bottle. The knife catches in it, and a vigorous jerk, which is as likely to cause a breakage as anything else, has to be resorted to to free it. The sides of hock and champagne bottles presenting an even surface the whole way up, that class of bottle is therefore to be preferred. By means of the foregoing three tricks I have seen a room full of intelligent people utterly bewildered.

Fig. 21

The following trick I have never known to be discovered if only properly performed. For it you will require another exceedingly common object, viz.:

Cotton.—Take a piece of any colour, 12in. to 15in. long, and see that one of the audience is provided with a very sharp penknife. Double the cotton once, and have the bend cut quite through. Double again and have it cut, and repeat the operation until it is nothing but pieces, each barely a third of an inch long. Rub the pieces together in the fingers, and, after a short time, quietly draw out the cotton again as it was in the first instance. That is what you must ostensibly do: now for how to do it. First of all, have concealed between your finger and thumb a piece of cotton about the length above mentioned. This you must roll up small, and deliberately hold between your finger and thumb, or, better still, if the fingers be sufficiently large, between the tips of any two fingers, as they are more naturally kept together. Nobody will notice it if the hand is engaged in negligently holding the lappel of your coat, the wand, &c. I need hardly mention that the concealed piece must be of the same colour as that operated upon, as the production of a white in place of a black piece would scarcely be satisfactory. To ensure the success of this preliminary, some considerable manœuvring has often to be gone through, and no small amount of tact exhibited. Where you are showing the trick for the first time, you can of course ask for any coloured cotton you please (always choose black when you have a choice), but it is such a fascinating trick that you will be called upon to perform it over and over again in the same house, or before the same people—which is quite as bad—and you will find that all kinds of ingenious devices will be brought to bear upon you. As a commencement, always carry in the corners of your waistcoat pockets two black and two white pieces, ready for emergencies. Each pocket will contain two pieces of the same colour, but differing in thickness, one in each corner. It is useless to carry other colours on the mere chance, as you are sure to be unprovided with the exact one required at the moment. When coloured cotton is produced, you must, by some means or other, get at the reel from which the cotton is taken. If driven right into a corner, you must go so far as to ask someone (always let it be the master or mistress of the house) to secretly obtain a piece for you; but this you will have to resort to on rare occasions only. Make all sorts of excuses so as to cause a delay, even going so far as to postpone the performance of the trick, but not before you have seen what colour you are likely to be favoured with. Your wits must do the rest. The reader must remember that I have taken extreme cases, and such as but rarely occur; but still they do occur, and if I did not warn the beginner of pitfalls ahead, he would not think much of my teaching. In the ordinary way, he will be able to ask for any colour he pleases, which will of course be similar to that with which he is provided. We will suppose that everything has progressed favourably. Take the cotton to be cut between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, by the extreme ends, and, doubling it, let one hand hold the loop to be cut, the fingers of the other hand holding the ends. As soon as the knife has passed through the cotton, give it a "twitch," and bring the ends, of which there will now be four, quickly together, as if you had performed some very intricate manœuvre. Of course, you have really done nothing at all, the movement being only a deceptive one to lead the spectators to believe that the secret of the trick consists in the way in which you twist or double the cotton. Have this in mind all through the trick, and keep up the deception. Continue to double the cotton, taking the greatest care that the ends all come neatly together, and that all the loops are cut through. Do everything with the greatest deliberation (except the delusive "twitch"), for there is no occasion for any hurry. When the cotton is cut so small that it will not double any more, commence to knead in the fingers, and gradually work the fragments behind the concealed piece, which must be brought to the front. This you will do without once removing the hands from the full view of the audience—in fact, under their very eyes. When you feel quite sure that everything is snug and secure, commence to unravel the whole piece, which will pass for the resuscitated original.

People who have seen the trick performed before will sometimes suggest that the piece of cotton should be measured before being cut up. Allow this to be done with all the grace in the world (when you find that you cannot do otherwise), but, before operating upon it, roll it up in the fingers, either absently, whilst engaging the audience in conversation, or for the purpose of seeing if it is of the proper dimensions, and exchange it, unperceived, for the concealed piece, which will be cut up instead. Although it is not advisable to have the cotton measured first, yet, when it is done, it invariably adds lustre to the feat. The pieces must never be carelessly thrown away, but secreted in a pocket on the first opportunity that presents itself, and afterwards burnt.