Fig. 51.—Incubation Trick
The Wizard's Omelet.—The recipes for making a magical omelet are numerous and varied. Some magicians produce the eggs from the mouth of a negro assistant following the example of Alexander Herrmann, and make the omelet in a borrowed hat. I once saw a clown in a French circus produce an omelet in a small frying-pan, without using eggs at all—or more properly speaking, without the apparent use of eggs. He stirred his wand about in the pan, holding the latter over a spirit lamp, and presently turned out into a dish an excellent omelet, smoking hot and very palatable. He cut up the omelet and passed it around among the audience. Those who partook of it pronounced it to be delicious and worthy of the chef of the Hotel Grand. This is the way the trick is accomplished: There is no preparation about the frying-pan; that is all fair and square, as well as round. It may be examined by the spectators ad libitum. Not so the magic wand, which is hollow and filled with the contents of several eggs. One end of the wand has an opening which is stopped up with a piece of butter. When the pan is heated the butter melts and the beaten-up eggs run out of the wand and are speedily metamorphosed into an omelet. The stirring of the pan with the wand, supposed to be a part of the conjurer's performance, is really necessary to the trick. The wand is usually made of tin. It must be an exact imitation of the wooden wand used during the course of the entertainment.
The Wonderful Production of Ribbons At the Finger-tips.—This is an excellent little trick and one very suitable as an introduction to a complete "production" trick, where objects of ever-increasing size, in a compressed condition, are produced under cover of similar objects, of a smaller size, but displayed to the best advantage. The performer having shown both hands unmistakably empty, commences to pull yard after yard of real colored silk ribbon from the extreme tips of the fingers.
The secret depends upon the little accessory illustrated in Fig. 52. This is a shield made to fit the second finger of the right hand,
Fig. 52.—The
Accessory provided with a lid to keep the four coils in position, also with a corresponding number of slots on the front through which the ribbon may be withdrawn. Each piece of ribbon should be about two yards long and
Fig. 53.—Production
of Ribbon of a width to readily pass the slot. Ribbon drawn from the apparatus when in position, see Fig. 53, will seem to come from the finger-tips.
After a quantity of ribbon has been produced in this manner, the magician may very well bring out a larger supply from his vest under cover of gathering up the mass of material. An excellent winding up of the trick would be the production of a dove from breast pocket.
Japanese Bird Vanish.—The old Mouchoir du Diable, or Devil's Handkerchief, for vanishing small objects will be known to the majority of my readers: at the best it was but a clumsy expedient for producing a magical disappearance, and on that account was very little, if ever used.