He would pluck this flower from his button-hole, and, in sight of the audience, who wondered “What he Would Do with It?” would dash it to the stage, stand on it, shut it up in a book, and martyrise it in various other modes.
In spite of this, he had but to take it up and tenderly wave it in the air, and gently breathe a tender sigh on it, and kiss it for its mother, when it would resume its pristine fulness of bloom—not a pistil broken, not a petal injured.
Explanation.—The flower is artificial, and carefully made of choice Berlin wool, which material will bear much ill-usage without injury to its elastic filaments.
Fig. 9.—The Victim of this Mystification.
THE FLYING COTTON REEL.
Wind off a ball of cotton cord (piping) upon a tin tube six inches long, and of the diameter of a half-crown or florin, or rather a trifle wider.
Borrow a coin which you have had marked, and change it by means of the magic salver.
