You may, however, sometimes desire merely to gain possession of a borrowed handkerchief, or to place it within reach of your assistant, without yourself leaving the apartment. In this case the substitute may be placed as before, but on your right side. Receiving the borrowed handkerchief in your right hand, you hold it loosely hanging down between the second and third, or third and fourth fingers. This leaves the thumb and first finger free, and with these you quickly pull down, as you turn to go to your table, the substitute. You thus have both handkerchiefs held openly in the same hand; but both being of like appearance, the audience take them to be one only. Passing behind your table, you let fall the borrowed handkerchief upon the servante, and throw the substitute upon the table.
A very audacious and generally successful mode of effecting the change is as follows: Taking the handkerchief, and pressing it into a moderately small compass, the performer says, “Now I am going to make this handkerchief disappear. There are plenty of ways of doing it. I’ll show you one or two. This is Professor De Jones’s method. He just turns round, so, to put the handkerchief on the table” (performer turns accordingly), “but meanwhile the handkerchief is gone. Ah, you were too sharp for me! You saw me poke it up my sleeve? Quite right, here it is. I see Professor De Jones’s method wouldn’t have any chance with you. This is Professor De Smith’s method.” He turns as before. “The handkerchief is gone again. Not far, though, for here it is” (turning back breast of coat and showing handkerchief). “Professor De Robinson does it like this.” (He turns away for an instant, and tucks handkerchief under waistband.) “Here it is, you see, under the waistcoat.” (Pulls it out again.) “Now, you may very well imagine that, if I had intended to have used any of these methods myself, I shouldn’t have explained them. You will find that my plan is quite a different one. When I want to get rid of a handkerchief, I just take it to the candle, and set it on fire, so” (holds handkerchief over candle, and sets light to it); or, “I place it in such and such a piece of apparatus,” etc., etc.
On the first two occasions of showing where the handkerchief is placed, the performer really does exhibit the genuine article; but at the third pretended feint, though he really does tuck it under his waistband, he pulls out again, not the same handkerchief, but a substitute, placed there beforehand. The action is so natural, and so much in harmony with his previous acts, that not one in a hundred will suspect that he has thereby really changed the handkerchief.
The mode of exchange last described, ingenious as it is, has one serious drawback—viz., that it gives the audience a clue which it is better that they should not have, and suggests suspicions and conjectures which, but for such a clue, they would never have thought of. To an acute mind, even such a slight hint as this will suggest enough to destroy half the effect of any subsequent trick in which a similar process of disappearance or exchange is employed, and even in the case of less intelligent spectators it will tend to diminish the prestige of the performer, by showing by what shallow artifices an illusion may be produced.
There are two or three pieces of apparatus for effecting the exchange of a handkerchief by mechanical means. A very good one is that known as “The Washerwoman’s Bottle,” in conjunction with which we will take the opportunity of describing the very effective trick known as
The Locked and Corded Box.—The “Washerwoman’s Bottle” is a simple and inexpensive piece of apparatus, of frequent use in handkerchief tricks. In appearance it is an ordinary black bottle, save that it has a rather shorter neck and wider mouth than the generality of such vessels. In reality it is made of tin, japanned black, and is divided by a vertical partition, commencing just below the mouth, into two compartments. One of these has a bottom, but the other has none, forming, in fact, a mere passage through the bottle. In the bottomed compartment is placed beforehand a piece of cambric, or dummy handkerchief, also about a glassful of port wine, or some other liquor of similar colour.
The performer borrows a lady’s handkerchief. Pretending that he is obliged to fetch some other article for the purpose of the trick, he says, as if struck by a sudden thought, “But I mustn’t run away with the handkerchief, or you might fancy that I had tampered with it in some way. Where shall I put it? Ah! the very thing. Here’s a bottle belonging to my washerwoman, which she left behind her the last time she came. It’s sure to be clean, for she is a most particular old lady. We often hear of a lady carrying a bottle in her handkerchief, why not a handkerchief in a bottle? First, madam, please see that I have not exchanged the handkerchief. Right, is it? Well, then, here goes for the bottle.” Standing behind his table, in full view of the spectators, he stuffs the borrowed handkerchief into the bottle, ramming it down with his wand. In so doing, he grasps the bottle with his left hand around its base, which he rests on the edge of the table nearest to himself, in such manner that about half the bottom projects over the edge. When he places the handkerchief in the bottle, he places it in the open compartment, and pushes it with his wand right through the bottle into his left hand, if he desires to obtain personal possession of it, or lets it fall on the servante, if it is to be carried off by his assistant. We will assume, for our present purpose, that he simply pushes it into his left hand, whence it is easy to get rid of it into the pochette on the same side. He now places the bottle in the centre of the table, but in doing so hears, or pretends to hear, a sound of liquid therein. “I hope the bottle was empty,” he remarks, “I never thought about that.” He shakes the bottle, and the liquid therein is distinctly audible. “Good gracious!” he exclaims, “I’m afraid I have ruined the handkerchief.” He now pours the liquid into a glass, and then, putting his fingers inside the bottle, he pulls out the prepared piece of cambric, which, of course, is wet and stained. Leaving it hanging from the neck of the bottle, he advances to the owner, and expresses his regret at the accident; but the audience, who begin to suspect that the pretended mistake is really a part of the trick, insist that the handkerchief shall be restored in its original condition. The performer feigns embarrassment, but at last says, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot dispute the justice of your observations. The handkerchief certainly ought to be returned clean as at first, and as my washerwoman has been the cause of the mischief, she is the proper person to repair it. Will you excuse my stopping the entertainment for an hour or two, while I go to fetch her? You object to the delay? Well, then, I will bring her here by spiritualistic means, à la Mrs. Guppy. Pardon me one moment.” He retires, and returns with a square box and the magic pistol. Placing the box on the table, and making a few mysterious passes over it with his wand, he says, in his deepest tones, “Spirit of Mrs. Tubbs, I command you to pass into this box, there to remain until you have repaired the damage which your carelessness has caused.” Then taking the saturated cambric from the bottle, he crams it into the pistol, and, retiring to the farthest portion of the stage, fires at the box. Laying down the pistol, and taking up the box, he advances to the owner of the handkerchief, and, offering her the key, begs her to unlock it. She does so, expecting to find her handkerchief, but finds instead a second box. This, and four or five others in succession, are opened, and in the innermost is found the handkerchief, folded and ironed, as if newly returned from the wash.
With the reader’s present knowledge, it would be almost superfluous to tell him that the operator avails himself of his momentary absence to damp and fold the handkerchief, and to press it with a cold iron. (If a hot one can be obtained, so much the better, but there is no absolute necessity for it.) Having done this, he places it in the square nest of boxes (see page [197]), and closing them returns to the audience. The magic pistol has already been described (page [216]). Where an assistant is employed, the performer merely pushes the handkerchief through the bottle on to the servante, as already mentioned, and the assistant, passing behind the table on some pretext or other, carries it off, and places it in the nest of boxes, while the audience are occupied by the pretended discovery of wine in the bottle. The trick in this form appears even more surprising, inasmuch as the performer does not leave the stage at all, and the box is brought in and placed on the table by a person who, to all appearance, has never had the handkerchief, even for a moment, in his possession.
In order still further to heighten the effect of the trick, the handkerchief is sometimes caused to reappear in the innermost of a nest of boxes which has throughout the entertainment been hung up in full view of the audience, and the outermost of which is carefully corded and sealed. The performer in this case, after firing at the supposed box (for the audience are, of course, ignorant that there are more than one), directs his assistant to take it down from its elevated position, and to place it on the table. Cutting the cords, and opening the box, he produces from it another, corded like the first. From this second box, he produces another smaller box, of an ornamental character (the square nest of boxes above mentioned). This he hands to the owner of the handkerchief, with a request that she will open it, and the result is as already described.
The trick in this form is one of the very best exhibited on the stage, and yet, as indeed are most of the best feats, it is performed by the simplest possible means. The outer box is an ordinary deal box, bonâ fide sealed and corded, but the second, though equally genuine in appearance, has no bottom, and the cord, though apparently quite complete, does not cross beneath the box, which is, in fact, nothing more than a wooden shell, or cover, with a lid to it. When the performer takes out this second box and places it on the table, he tilts it forward for a moment, and in that moment slips the nest of boxes (which is placed in readiness on the servante), underneath it, immediately afterwards raising the lid, and taking out the nest, as if it had all along been contained therein.