Joe Strong, the boy wizard; or, The mysteries of magic exposed

by Vance Barnum

That is, he seemed to do so, but, in reality, he slipped it into the little outside triangular pocket he had pasted there for it. He could now hold the bag up, with the side containing the watch away from the audience, and, as he showed both hands empty, every one thought the watch was in the bag. It was, in a sense.

Joe then twisted the bag up, making it conform to the shape of the watch, and when this point was reached he quietly slipped the watch out from the pocket into his hand, cleverly “palming” the timepiece. With the watch safe in his hand, he laid the bag on the floor of the stage. The paper still retaining its round shape, and no one suspected that the watch was not in it.

Then Joe stepped on the paper bag. Of course it sounded as if he had broken the watch crystal, but, in reality, what the audience heard was the crunching of the lumps of sugar.

Joe pretended to be much exercised as he picked up the bag, and as he did this, he slipped the watch into his secret pocket, and managed to put over its glass face the crystal he had previously prepared by scoring and criss-crossing with the diamond. When this was done Joe again palmed the real watch, but now it had over its face a glass that seemed to be cracked in all directions.

Reaching his hand, in which the watch was palmed, inside the bag, Joe seemingly brought out the cracked watch. Again he manifested much concern, and more so when a pressure of his thumb really broke the prepared glass.

Then he was ready for the mortar and pestle part of the trick. He put the fragments of glass on the paper bag, and lowered the watch, with its back toward the audience, into the pestle. This was done so that no one would see that the crystal was still whole and uncracked, which was the case.

The real watch was now in the mortar, but it did not actually rest on the bottom. Instead it rested on the false piece of wood, and beneath this wood, in a hollowed-out place, were the pieces of a cheap watch.

As Joe looked down into the pestle, as though to see that the watch was all ready to be pounded up, he “palmed” off the false head of the pestle. This left that instrument with a hollow head, inside which would fit the real watch, to be concealed from view by the loose false bottom of the mortar, when the pestle was lifted.

Joe now put the pestle into the mortar, slipping the opening in the pestle over the watch and false bottom, and by a slight rotary motion causing the false bottom of the mortar to fit itself into the pestle and stick there. The real watch was now concealed in the hollow head of the pestle, while the fragments of the cheap watch were exposed in the bottom of the mortar.

Joe now pretended that the pestle was not strong enough to smash up the watch as he wanted it, and used a poker. He laid the pestle on the table, which was a signal for the boy assistant to take it out behind the scenes. And while he had the pestle there the boy took out the real watch, quickly tied a pink ribbon through the ring, and then, going to one of the curtains, in which was a slit, he reached through this slit and suspended the ribbon on a short branch of the flower, letting it hang down out of sight behind the pot. Of course the audience did not see this, for the folds of the curtain concealed the slit. Besides, all eyes were on Joe.