“Here we have one, two, three, four, five. I pick up two of them.” (Draw shell over solid in act of picking up.) “I give them a gentle squeeze and they become one only.” (Show as one, and replace on mat behind the mouth of pocket.) “Now I treat two more in the same way.” (Repeat accordingly, replacing these also, as one, on mat.) “We have now only three left. Let me see, which is the original? Ah! here it is, with the owner’s mark upon it.” (Pick it up and show in left hand.) “Now I rub one of these others into it.” (Make the movement of picking up one of the double coins, and of rubbing it into the coin in left hand, but in reality “vanish” it, in the supposed act of picking up, into the pocket of mat.) “And now I pass this other one into it in the same way, and we have only the original penny left. It is like the ten little niggers, isn’t it, only that they never came back. Here is your penny, Sir. Please observe that it still has your own mark upon it, which is proof positive that there has been ‘no deception.’”
N. B. If the performer is a novice, he may simplify the trick by loading the coin mat with one double and one ordinary coin only, or two ordinary coins, limiting the successive productions accordingly.
THE MISSING LINK
At an early period of my magical career, I devised a trick to which I gave the name of Concatenation Extraordinary, and which will be found described in Later Magic, page 94. In effect it consisted of the magical welding of a number of loose iron links into a continuous chain. It was performed by the aid of a Black Art table, a bottomless tumbler, and a silk thread. “Though I say it that shouldn’t,” it was an ingenious trick, and I was very proud of it. Unfortunately, some good natured friend (I rather think it was Mr. David Devant) pointed out to me that about ninety-five per cent of my ingenuity was wasted, inasmuch as the same effect, so far as the spectator was concerned, could be produced by infinitely simpler means, viz.:—by using a glass with double mirror partition, when all the other paraphernalia became unnecessary. You had only to load the hinder compartment with the complete chain, and after a due amount of “talkee-talkee,” drop the loose links into the forward one, turn the glass round, and the deed was done.
The trick, as a trick, was just as good in its new shape as before, but being at that time (comparatively) young and foolish, its extreme simplicity spoilt it for me, and I lost all interest in it. Not long since, however, I was reminded of it by coming across the chain and links which had figured in my performance of the trick, and it struck me that, in a slightly modified form, it may still be worth the attention of the drawing-room conjurer.
The requirements for the trick in this, its latest form, are as follows:
First, the mirror glass; and as to this I may note in passing that the “mirror” is best made of tin-plate, not too highly polished, in place of the looking-glass plate which was, until a quite recent period, generally employed for the purpose.
Secondly, a length of small iron chain, made up of twenty-six links, connected in the centre by a twenty-seventh link of brass.
Thirdly, two shorter lengths of similar chain, consisting of thirteen links each, and a loose brass link, corresponding to the one in the centre of the longer chain. The complete chain is to be placed at the outset in the hinder compartment of the mirror glass, which should be of such a size that the chain nearly fills it.