FIG 3.
Place the spring between the folds of Fig. 3, so that the arms will lie on F F, and then paste them firmly down by placing over a strip of paper of the same color as the "flower." Next put Fig. 2 between Fig. 3; paste the points C C to E E and G G to B B, and let them dry thoroughly. The flower has now assumed the shape shown in Fig. 5. All that it needs to complete it are two green leaves of paper, silk, or muslin, which are to be pasted one on each side at the smaller end. To make much display, about five hundred of these flowers ought to be used.
FIG. 4.
Having made the flowers, the next thing to learn is how to get them into the paper horn without being seen. Some performers load the cone—to load being the technical name for filling—by simply holding a bundle of flowers in the right hand, and deliberately placing the hand inside the cone, under pretence of taking out a flower, but that is anything but artistic.
Do up three bundles of, say, seventy-five flowers each. To do these up place them between two oblong pieces of thin green card-board, putting an elastic over the longer way; and that this may not slip, have nicks in the ends. Pressing these ends will cause the card-boards to bulge out in the centre, and allow the flowers to escape. Two of these bundles must have loops of rather stiff wire run through the elastics, so that when the bundles lie on the table the loops stand up. These bundles are laid at the back of the table, behind a basket, at the performer's left. The third bundle, also on the table, is a little to the right of the others.
PAPER LEAF.
The performer first bares his arms, then rolls up his cone and throws it on the floor, mouth toward the audience, or lays it on a table. Now picking up the third bundle with his left hand, and putting it, almost in the same movement, under the bottom of a basket which he picks up, he advances to his audience to show that the basket is empty. Returning to the stage, he lays the basket on his table, retaining the bundle of flowers in his left hand. Then picking up the cone by the smaller end, he remarks, "The hands are empty." As he says this he passes the cone to the left hand, which he places inside the mouth, thus dropping the bundle in, shows the right hand empty, and taking the cone in that hand again, shows the left also empty. Putting both hands around the lower part of the cone, he squeezes it and the card-boards, and the flowers being released, he begins to pour them into the basket.