To cause the disappearance of the handkerchiefs proceed as follows:—Take up three of the colored ones, at the same time secretly obtaining one of the vanishers, and, with an up and down motion of the hands work them into the ball. Then pass the ball to the back of the hand, and show the palms empty.
When taking up the other three handkerchiefs drop the vanisher into the servante, secure the other one, and proceed as before. Then take up the white handkerchief, again disposing of the vanisher into the servante, and securing the ball of six tied together. Finally wave the white handkerchief up and down, and gradually work out the colored ones, one after another.
Color-changing Handkerchiefs.—The effect of this trick, which is one of the best in the whole category of sleight of hand feats, is as follows:—Three white handkerchiefs are pushed into a paper tube, and as they come out at the opposite end they are seen to be dyed respectively red, yellow, and green. The paper is then unrolled and torn in half, when the white handkerchiefs are found to have vanished entirely.
Fig. 16.—Handkerchief Fitted
with Brass Tube
To perform the trick you must be provided with a piece of drawing-paper ten inches by eight inches (a leaf from a plain drawing-book will answer the purpose admirably), three very fine white silk handkerchiefs fifteen inches square, and three colored ones of the same size and texture. The last of the colored handkerchiefs to appear at the end of the tube is prepared as follows:—Take a piece of one and one quarter inches brass tubing, three inches long, and insert it in the middle of one side of the handkerchief (Fig. 16), by covering it with a piece of silk of the same color. This piece of silk is extended beyond the tube, as shown, to form a kind of pocket.
To prepare for the trick push the body of the handkerchief into the brass tube at the end A, and the other two colored ones on the top of it. The piece of paper is laid on the table with the tube of handkerchiefs under its rear edge. The three white handkerchiefs are then laid across the paper.
To perform the trick stand on the left of your table and take up the paper with the right hand, the left hand keeping the white handkerchiefs in front of the tube of colored ones. Draw attention to the fact that the paper is unprepared, then lay it on the table in such a manner that it again conceals the tube, and take up the white handkerchiefs. Show the handkerchiefs, remarking that they are of the ordinary description, and then lay them on the table. Pick up the paper, and with it the colored handkerchiefs, which are held behind it with the thumb of the right hand.
You now form the paper into a tube round the colored handkerchiefs and hold it in the left hand. Pick up the white handkerchiefs one at a time, place them in the left hand with the tube, and remark:—"I will now pass the white handkerchiefs through the cylinder, first, however, showing you that it is perfectly empty." As you say this you take the handkerchiefs in the right hand, and as if to illustrate what you say, place them near the mouth of the tube. This gives you the opportunity of dropping the colored handkerchiefs into the white ones. The cylinder is now shown empty, and the white handkerchiefs are pushed into one end of it; care being taken to introduce the colored ones first, and to keep them out of sight of the audience. You now grasp the brass tube tightly through the paper and press the white handkerchiefs into it. This, of course, pushes out the colored handkerchiefs, which appear at the other end of the cylinder, the white ones being concealed in the body of the last colored one.
When performing the trick it is necessary to be careful to insert the right end of the brass tube into the paper cylinder, otherwise the experiment would not be successful.