AN EXPERIMENT IN GRAVITY
Give a person two half-crowns and request him to hold them horizontally between the tips of his thumb and finger of his right hand, the coins touching each other. Then request him to drop the lower coin in his left hand and you will tell him which side will come uppermost. First note which side of the coin is underneath when you place them in position, for that will be the uppermost side when it reaches his left hand. The lower coin will turn completely over in the act of falling: nothing can prevent it. The distance between the hands should be from fourteen to sixteen inches.
A SCISSORS FEAT
Hold a pair of scissors on the first two joints of your little fingers with your palms upward, their blades pointing to the floor ([Fig. 27]). Then throw the points over toward you, turning your hands at the same time and bringing 72 your knuckles back to back, the scissors standing out straight from you ([Fig. 28]).
Fig. 27.
Fig. 28.
I have never seen any one accomplish this simple feat until they learned the secret. When you throw the scissors over on the palms of your hands, with their points toward your chest, allow the blades to rest there for an instant with the tips of your little fingers touching your palms through the scissors’ bows; then bring the backs of your fingers together with your hands closed and the points of the scissors outward. The uninitiated, instead of allowing the bows to slip to the points of the little fingers, hold them tight on the second joints and, of course, fail.