The Dancing Egg.—Request someone to play the piano, and, touching an egg with your magic wand, call upon it to dance. It will do so if you observe the following directions. Let the egg be boiled hard and brought into the room piping hot. Make a small hole in the shell and through this push into the egg a quill that contains quicksilver, and has both ends firmly sealed. So long as the egg retains its heat, so long will it dance.
Mystic Thread.—Have suspended by a long thread an ordinary ring. Let someone in the audience strike a match and set fire to the thread. It burns, but the ring does not fall because the thread has been thoroughly steeped in common salt and water.
Eggs without Hens.—Have a bag made of calico or similar material. Have it made double and just inside the mouth of the part you keep towards you have six little pockets made. Into each of these put an egg that has been blown or sucked until nothing remains in it. You may now shake the bag and turn it inside out to show it is empty, and yet you are able to produce one egg after another. One may be a full one, and if you break this the trick will seem more real.
Feathers from a Handkerchief.—Obtain some long feathers—the longer the better. Take off your coat and lay the feathers in the left sleeve with the quills near the wrist. Now put on your coat with the feathers still there. Borrow a large handkerchief, and after flourishing it, to show it conceals nothing, throw it over your left arm. When you take it up again take with it one of the feathers, and when you shake the handkerchief again out drops the feather. If the feather is large and curved it will not appear as though it had been up your sleeve. Repeat the process with suitable talk until all the feathers have been produced.
Ink Changed to Water.—Fit a black silk lining into a glass vessel so that it lines the sides but not the bottom. Put water in the glass and gold fish, but let the audience see nothing except the black lining. Behind the glass have a spoon with ink in it. Speak to the audience with an empty spoon in your hand, and then go to the glass, secretly change the spoons and pretend to take a spoonful of ink from the glass. Now show the spoon with the ink in it to the audience, and they will believe the vessel is full of ink. Throw a cloth over the glass and call upon the ink to change to water. Remove the cloth, and with it the black lining, and there you have the water and the gold fish swimming in it.
The Mysterious Box.—Secure a little round box, into the bottom of which a half-crown will fit exactly. Line the box with dark paper and cover one side of a half-crown with the same material. Retaining this half-crown, pass the box round to be examined so that the audience may be sure it has no false bottom. Now borrow half-a-crown, and as you return to the table exchange it for your prepared one. Show this to the audience, keeping the papered side carefully towards you, and let them see you drop it into the box. In doing this keep the papered side upwards. Close the box and shake it up and down so that the coin rattles. Now touch the box with your wand and charge the coin to pass into a box, vase, or any other object in another part of the room into which you have previously placed half-a-crown. Shake the box again, this time from side to side, and there will be no rattle. Open it, the coin cannot be seen. Now ask the audience to go to the place where you have planted the other half-crown, and while they are looking for it take out your papered half-crown. When they have found the other half-crown hand round the box again for them to examine. Simple as is this trick, it is very puzzling to the audience.
How Threepence Vanished.—Place a threepenny piece upon the palm of your hand. Close your hand, but have a piece of wax upon the nail of your middle finger. Press this upon the coin, open your hand, and the coin will be out of sight.
The Hat Trick.—Borrow a hat, for a trick with a hat always has an air of importance. Now, with a deal of elaboration, take a glass of water and proceed deliberately to cover the glass over with the hat. You undertake to drink the water without removing the hat. Your challenge is accepted. You stoop beneath the table and commence making a loud sucking noise with the lips, as though you were drawing the water through the table. With a sharp “Now, sir!” the curiosity of your opponent will make him lift up the hat; you instantly seize the glass and swallow the contents, saying, “You perceive, sir, I have drunk the water and I have not removed the hat.”
Card Tricks.—Inseparable Kings.—Take four kings. Beneath the last place any two cards, which you take care to conceal. Then show the four kings and replace the six cards under the pack. Then take a king and place it on the top of the pack, place one of the two other cards in the middle, and the other about the same place, and then, turning up the pack, show that one king is still at the bottom. Then let the cards be cut, and as three kings were left below, all must necessarily get together somewhere about the middle of the pack. Of course in placing the two other cards you pretend to be placing two kings.
To Guess Chosen Cards.—Make a set of all the clubs and spades, and another set of hearts and diamonds. Shuffle well each set, and even let them be shuffled by the spectators. Then request a person to draw a card from one of the sets, and another person to draw one from the second set. You now take a set in each hand, presenting them to the two persons requesting them to replace the drawn cards. You must pretend to present to each person the set from which he drew his card, but in reality you present the red set to the person who drew the black card, and the black set to the person who drew the red card.