Previously to commencing your performance, fit the boxes within each other, and place them in a table drawer at another part of the room. You also fit the covers in the same manner, and lay them by the side of the boxes; you likewise provide a silk handkerchief, into one corner of which a shilling is sewed.
You now commence your operations, by borrowing a shilling, desiring the lender to mark it, that it may not be changed. Take this shilling in your right hand, and the handkerchief in your left, pretending to place the shilling in the centre of the handkerchief; instead of which, you put the corner of the handkerchief in which a shilling was sewed, as previously described, concealing the borrowed shilling in your right hand. You then desire the person to feel that the shilling is there, and tell him to hold it tight.
You now go to the drawer, and placing the borrowed shilling in the smallest of the boxes, you put on all the covers, by taking them in the centre between the fore-finger and thumb, to prevent their separation, and fit them on, by carefully sliding them along, and then pressing them down.
Having thus closed your boxes, you produce what appears to be a single box, and lay it on the table. You now ask the person, who still retains his hold of the shilling in the handkerchief, if he is sure that it is there. He will reply in the affirmative; you then request him to allow you to take the handkerchief, and having done so, you strike that part of the handkerchief containing the shilling on the box, and immediately shake out the handkerchief, holding it by two corners, and shifting it round so as to get the shilling within your grasp: it will thus appear that the shilling is no longer there. You desire the person to open the box, and hand it round, till the shilling be found; and when the last box is opened, and the shilling taken out, you ask the lender to state whether it is the one which he marked; to which he must, of course, reply in the affirmative.
THE LOCOMOTIVE SHILLING.
Privately place a shilling, which you previously mark on the head side with a cross, under a candlestick, or in any other out-of-the-way situation, where it is not likely to be discovered. You next borrow a shilling of one of the company, and say: “Now I am going to show you a trick with this shilling, but that you may know it again, I will mark it.” Then take your penknife, and cross it in the same manner as the one you have concealed; show it to the person who lent it to you, and ask him if he will know it again. He will reply: “Yes; it is marked with a cross.” Knock under the table, and say “Presto! fly quickly!” at the same time, adroitly conveying the shilling into your pocket. You then tell the spectators that it is gone; but you have a strong notion that if they look they will find it under the candlestick, (or whatever other place you may have concealed it in,) where the first shilling you marked will of course be found, and having the same marks as the genuine one will be mistaken for it.
THE PENETRATIVE SIXPENCE.
You profess that you will make a sixpence appear to pass through the table. To perform this feat, you must have a handkerchief, in one corner of which is sewed a sixpence.—Take it out of your pocket, and ask one of the company to lend you a sixpence, which you must seem to carefully wrap up in the middle of the handkerchief, but instead of which, you keep it in the palm of your hand, and in its stead, wrap up the corner in which the other sixpence is sewed, in the midst of the handkerchief, and bid the person from whom you borrowed the sixpence, feel that it is there. You then lay it under a hat upon the table, take a glass in the hand in which you have concealed the sixpence, and hold it under the table. Give three knocks upon the table, crying “Presto! come quickly!” Then drop the sixpence into the glass; bring the glass from under the table, and exhibit the sixpence to the spectators. You lastly take the handkerchief from under the hat, and shake it, taking care to hold it by the corner in which the sixpence was sewed.