A guinea-pig or small kitten may be substituted for the rabbit, the performer accounting for the wrong animal being produced by supposing that he must have made some mistake in mixing the ingredients.
CHAPTER XVI.
Miscellaneous Tricks.
Under this head we propose to describe such tricks as do not come within either of the preceding categories. We shall make no attempt at classifying them, save that we shall, as far as practicable, describe the best known and simplest feats first, and thence proceed to the more complicated. Stage tricks, i.e., tricks adapted to the stage only, will be treated in the Chapter next following. We will begin with
The Cut String Restored.—This is a trick of such venerable antiquity, that we should not have ventured to allude to it, were it not that the mode of working which we are about to describe, though old in principle, is new in detail, and much superior in neatness to the generally known methods.
Fig. 152.
After having offered the string, which should be about four feet in length, for examination, the performer takes the ends (pointing upwards) between the first and second finger and thumb of the left hand, and the first finger and thumb of the right hand, letting the remainder of the string hang down in a loop between them. Now bringing the right hand close to the left, he draws that portion of the string which is held in the right hand towards himself between the first and second fingers of the left hand (thus crossing at right angles that end of the cord which is held in the left hand), continuing to pull until half the length of the string has passed the left hand, and at the same time slipping the third finger of the left hand between the two parts of the string, which will thus be as shown in [Fig. 152], in which, for convenience of reference, the three lines in which the string now hangs are marked a, b, and c, and one-half of the string is shown black, and the other half white, though of course there would be no such difference of colour in the original.[L] The first finger and thumb of the right hand, still retaining the end which they already hold, seize the portion b at the point marked with that letter, the third finger of the left hand at the same time drawing back the portion a towards the palm of the hand. The string will thus be brought into the position shown in [Figs. 153] and [154], (in the latter of which, for the sake of clearness, the thumbs are made transparent), the part now held horizontally between the two hands, which appears to be the middle of the string, really being only the immediate continuation of the end held in the left hand. The whole operation of arranging the string in proper position, though tedious to describe, does not take half a second in practice.
[L] It should be mentioned that, in order to economize space in the diagrams, the actual length of the string is represented as much shortened.