The handkerchief is taken in the right hand, the left meanwhile raising the glass a little way to meet it. In covering and lowering it again to the table the needful half-turn is made.
“I will not touch the glass again until the experiment is finished. Meanwhile I want to call your attention to these two tubes. You will observe that one of them is slightly larger than the other. A gentleman told me the other evening that I was wrong in saying so. He maintained that the one was smaller than the other. I didn’t argue with him. I never do with that sort of man. It is just a question of the point of view. Anyhow, I had the one made larger, or the other one smaller, whichever way it is, so that the one can go comfortably over the other, like this.”
A, first carelessly moved about so as to show clearly that it is empty, is brought down over B and lifted off again, carrying off within it C and its load; after which B is in turn shown to be empty.
“Now I am going to order the beans to jump out of the glass and into one or other of these empty tubes, at your own choice. Right? or left? Which shall it be?”
Performer asks the question standing behind his table, and by means of the familiar equivoque (“my” or “your” left or right) interprets the answer to mean A.
“And now I have only to pronounce the proper magic spell. The trouble is to remember the right one. They are rather confusing, and if you happen to pronounce the wrong one, or even pronounce the right one the wrong way, the consequences may be serious. But I think I know this one pretty well. ‘Peripatetico-paticocorum.’ I fancy I have got it right. I don’t know quite what it means myself, and nobody seems to be able to tell me. A Japanese gentleman told me he thought it was Spanish, but a Spaniard said he felt sure it was Welsh. Somebody else suggested that I should ‘ask a pleeceman.’ I did ask a policeman, and he said, ‘Go to—’ somewhere I won’t mention, but I don’t think he meant it as a translation. My own idea is that it is a bit of Esperanto. Anyhow, it has the desired effect; for you see the beans have left the glass” (uncovering it and showing it empty), “and they have jumped into this tube, which is what I wanted them to do.”
The beans are poured from the tube into the vacant portion, now to the front, of the mirror glass, with due care that the coil at bottom shall not be seen.
“But there’s something wrong here. I must have made some little mistake in the pronunciation of the magic spell, for the paper seems to have disappeared as well as the beans. There is certainly no room for it in the tube. Here it is, though, or some of it.”
The paper is unwound, and when it comes to an end the wand is passed through A and C (now bottomless) together, again proving (?) that the former which is always shown to the spectators could not possibly have contained the beans in any natural way. A moment or two later the inner tube can easily be got rid of behind the mass of paper ribbon.
[9] The little dishes of paper pulp sold for picnic purposes will be found to answer this and similar purposes excellently and have the further advantage of being exceptionally portable.