Next shake your sleeves and let your friends see that you have no coins hidden about you. When they are convinced that such is the case, pick up one half-dollar with the thumb and second finger of your right hand. Palm this in your right hand while you pretend to pass it to your left, of course making a motion with the left hand as if it received and still held the coin.
The right hand will then seem to be empty, although still holding the half-dollar. Next pick up the other coin with the right hand, and place the hand behind you, being careful to keep the left well in front, and always in sight of your audience. Make some few remarks concerning the difficulty of the trick, and at last pronounce the magic word “Pass”; at the same time clink the two coins together, as if one had hit the other in the meeting. Then bring the right hand forward, and, opening it and the left at the same time, show that the coin has actually left the latter and entered the former, as you promised it should do.
HOW TO ROB PETER AND ENRICH PAUL.
Twenty pieces of money are necessary for this trick; and two-cent pieces, or quarters, are perhaps the most convenient sizes to use. Of these, borrow fifteen from your audience, the other five have at hand, but concerning which your friends are to know nothing.
Having borrowed them from the company, count out five, and give them to one of your audience, while to another you give ten, and after having seen that the latter counts his carefully, take those given to the first, mutter some cabalistic nonsense, and order them to pass into the hands of the one who has the ten pieces. Finally, request him to count them again, when, strange to relate, he will find that he has fifteen, instead of the ten pieces which he was supposed to have.
The trick is performed in this manner: Upon receiving the money, throw it upon a plate or box cover—the plate is the best—and passing it to the first person, request him to take five of the pieces away. Now give the remaining money, with the plate, to the second, and ask him to drop each coin as he counts it, on the plate, that all may know he has counted correctly.
Then comes the only difficult part of the trick. Ask the one who has counted the coins to hold both his hands, while you pour the money into them, and taking the plate in your left hand, pour the contents into your right, where you have already five more palmed (the five the audience have not seen). Now pour the fifteen into the hands of number two, and impress upon him the importance of keeping his hands well closed over the money. This will prevent his noticing that an addition has been made. Take the five from person number one, and pretend to place them in your other hand, but instead palm them. Do your talking and command the money to pass. If you have taken proper care in palming your coins, the audience, as well as the one holding the money, will be greatly amazed by the trick.
DANGER OF REPETITION.
In almost any performance of this kind, the audience, especially if of one’s intimate friends, are anxious for the performer to try again whatever strikes them as strange or mysterious, being of course on their guard to watch certain movements, at points in the performance which they had scarcely noticed before.
So it is very unsafe to try any trick over again immediately after it has been once performed, or in fact during the same evening; although perhaps it might be safely done if a number of different ones intervened. If beseeched to try it “just once more,” make as graceful an excuse as you can, and suggest in its place something equally interesting.