Hang your watch on a hook on the board, and place a ball resting on this hook. Break the ball. This is easy, as the ball is, comparatively, a big mark. Aim at the top edge of the ball, so as to break it by a grazing shot near the top; this is less risky for the watch.
Do the same with any watches lent by the audience. A man once kept lending me his watch for this trick; I found out afterwards that it would not go, and he had hoped that I would hit it and thus be compelled to give him another!
Borrow small objects from the audience, and hit them. Stamps on envelopes, visiting cards, bits of pencil, etc., are suitable; but do not shoot at anything which will make a bullet glance, or you may hit some of your audience. Thus a walnut is very dangerous, causing bullets to glance. An orange or an egg explodes beautifully when hit, but both are rather messy. The coloured balls for Christmas trees are nice to shoot at; but a bullet sometimes makes a hole without breaking them.
Put up the ace of hearts and hit it. It is usual to have a pack composed of only aces of hearts. Have several ace cards placed on top of each other, and when the bullet goes through the group, have the cards “dealt” among the audience; or, if at a Charity Bazaar, sold singly.
Put up the six of hearts, and hit the six pips. This requires some doing to get all six shots neatly in the separate pips.
Put a card edgeways towards you and cut it in half. This is a pretty trick and brings down the house when well done. It requires the same skill as hitting the vertical pencil lines. If you are not very sure of yourself, and you succeed on the first shot, do not risk a second try. This rule applies to all the difficult shots. My best score at this game was five cards out of six shots, the cards being placed edgewise at a range of fifteen feet.
Hit a string from which an object is hanging. Get string which is weak, and have the object pretty heavy, or else you may “nick” the string without its breaking. Berlin wool, with a weight so heavy that it strains the wool to nearly breaking-point, breaks with more certainty than string or twine. There is an ingenious, though scarcely legitimate, way of making this shot very easy. You merely double a piece of string and tie a knot, hanging it over two nails, the distance between which is a fraction under .44 inch. Two hooks on the ball are the same distance apart, so that the ball is thus hung by a double string. If you hit between these, both strings are necessarily cut by a .44 bullet, if your aim be true, while one is cut even if you hit half an inch out.
Put a rubber balloon filled with red fluid on top of an empty claret glass; break the ball, and the glass will be filled with the fluid. Take care the ball fits very loosely, and rests only slightly in the glass, or the latter will break also.
Knock a cork off a bottle; an ordinary wine bottle or a wooden or metal one is dangerous if hit, as causing the bullet to glance; it is better to have a plaster of Paris bottle, painted black.
Put up a bunch of six grapes, and take them off one at a time.