I use two tubes of stiff cardboard, each about four inches long by one and a half in diameter. One of these is just a plain tube with no speciality about it. The other has a piece of fine wire crossing it midway from side to side, and taking the form of a half hoop, as shown in Fig. 29, the ends serving as pivots on which it moves freely. On the outside, one of its ends is turned down vertically, forming a tiny switch or handle. The normal tendency of the halfhoop is to hang downward across the tube (thereby closing it to the passage of a ball) but a touch of the finger, moving the little switch to right or left, raises the loop to a horizontal position against one or other of the sides of the tube, when it no longer offers any obstacle to the passing of the ball. The wire used is so thin that with the halfhoop lying against its side a spectator may safely be allowed to look through the tube even at a very short distance, without fear of his perceiving the presence of the wire.

The requirements for the trick, all told, are as follows:

One of the white balls must be vested or otherwise so placed as to be ready for production from the wand. The second white ball and the red ball are stowed in the pochettes, one on each side. The faked tube may be vested and exchanged for the plain one during the journey back to the table after the dummy has been tendered for inspection; the latter being dropped into the profonde. These however are matters which the expert will arrange after his own fashion. If the performer, not being an expert, doubts his ability to “change” the tubes neatly during the transit, he may suppress the plain tube altogether and commence at once with the exhibition of the faked tube from the platform, but the omission makes the trick less convincing.

We will suppose that the performer goes for the maximum effect and advances offering the dummy tube for inspection. The patter I suggest for the trick in this form runs as follows:

“I have here, ladies and gentlemen, a hollow tube. It is not uncommon for tubes to be hollow, but this one is, if anything, even hollower than usual. I should like some lady or gentleman to examine it carefully and testify that it is just a plain ordinary tube with absolutely no deception of any sort about it. If it was not so, you may be sure I should hardly venture to let you examine it. You can see through it, hear through it, or blow through it. You are satisfied? Then I will show you a curious little experiment with it.”

During the return to the table the dummy is exchanged for the trick tube.

“I call the experiment I am about to show you ‘The Mystery of Mahomet.’ I gave it that name because it was Mahomet who suggested the idea to me. I don’t mean personally. I didn’t know him. In point of fact he did not give me the idea till after he had been dead for some years. This sounds peculiar, but I will explain.

“When Mahomet died he wasn’t buried like other people. His coffin was placed in a mosque, where it hangs in the air like a captive balloon, about twenty feet up, resting on nothing at all. I am not certain as to the exact height from the ground, but that is what the Moslems say, and they would hardly tell a story about a little thing like that. It has always been a mystery what keeps the prophet up aloft. Some say it is done by mesmerism, some say by magnetism, and one old gentleman declared it was done by mormonism. No doubt, when you come to think of it Mahomet was a bit of a Mormon. But they are all wide of the mark. As a matter of fact the coffin rests on a slab of compressed air. It’s quite simple, when you know it. I haven’t a coffin handy, but by means of this little tube I can show you the effect of the same principle on a smaller scale.