Now, taking the same cup up again, clap the ball under as before; and, taking the third ball in your right hand, seem to put it under your left, but still retain it in your right hand; then with your left hand seem to fling it in the cup, and it will appear thus:—
All the balls being under one cup.
If you can perform these feats with the cups and balls dexterously, you may change the balls into apples, pears, plums, or living birds, as your fancy leads you.
A still more Extraordinary Mode of Playing at Cups and Balls.
You must provide six cups made of the same size and metal (persons with hands, as seen above, require only three), but keep three of them concealed in the juggling-bag until they are required.
The trick performed by the three first cups is as follows:—Take out of the bag your three cups, and place them on a table. You must have balls of cork provided, and concealed, but one ball must be on the table. Then say, “Ladies and Gentlemen,” turning up your three cups (though at the same time you must have a ball concealed), “you see there is nothing under my cups; I take and put this cup here; I put the second there; and the third there.” The ball you have hid must be clapped under one of the cups at the time you were placing them.
You must have a tin bottom in the inside of one of your cups, and holes punched in it like a grater. Then say, “Ladies and Gentlemen,” (taking the ball off the table, and placing it on the cup the ball is under), “observe, I cover this ball with this cup,” clapping the third cup on the other two; then say, “Presto, I command the ball from under the middle cup to the bottom.” Then taking off the first and second cups, the ball, they think, is gone to the bottom; whereas the ball that is laid on the top of the undermost sticks fast to the grater that covers it, and, when the cup is turned up, it is the ball that was conveyed first that appears.
Next place, take the ball that is on the table, and say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, there is but one ball left,” clapping the cup with the tin bottom, where the ball is concealed, over that ball on the table, so as that ball that was sticking to the tin falls down, and makes two; then clapping the cup down, convey another ball you have secured, and say, “Vene tome;” then say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, there are three balls and three cups;” first having secured two balls (having some strange gestures of body and speech to take off the eyes of the spectators), at the same time taking up one of the cups, but putting it down on one of the balls, with the two balls secured; then clap the second cup on the second ball, and the third cup on the third ball.