Hanky Panky

by Wiljalba Frikell

A little model well, mounted on a stand, is shown to the company, and is held upside down to prove that it is empty. Four different kinds of seed, as rape, hemp, canary, millet, and so on, are mixed together (or coloured sweetmeats, those called “hundreds-and-thousands” being suitable), and the mass is thrown down the well. The company then decide in what order they will have the sorts of seed separately drawn up, and this had better be written down to prevent difficulties, as

1st, Hempseed; 2nd, canary; 3rd, rape; 4th, millet.

A little bucket attached to a revolving beam above the well is let down, and each time that it is drawn up, bring up the seeds in the order prearranged.

Explanation.—In the lower half of the well, level with each other, are four cells, at the height of the bucket from the bottom of the well. The floor of these cells is inclined towards the well, so that, on the doors of these cells being opened, their contents must slide out into the well. In each cell is one sort of seed. The doors are valves opened by pressure on secret springs on the outside of the well, like the keys of a flute. The well narrows at the bottom so as to only admit the bucket. At the bottom of the well is a secret trap, down which the mixed seed falls and is no more seen.

Operation.—When the mixed seed has been thrown down and falls into the secret receptacle, the performer takes the well in his hand, and places his fingers on the little slightly projecting pins which work the valves of the cells. All that is now to be done is to make that valve open which will open the cell of the seed demanded.

THE TWIN SINGING-BIRDS.

Mr. Panky brings forward a cage in which are two birds, perched on different branches of a tree, which sing, one the first part, the other the second, of a piece of music, which would hardly let anyone to believe them live birds trained to so exquisite a degree.

But when their bodies are found to be covered with shells, and their eyes made of precious stones, that illusion cannot for a moment be entertained. And yet it is unreasonable that mechanism should impel their action, when they are seen to spring from one bough to another, while perfectly detached from the cage itself.

The smallness of their size, and the multiplicity and variety of their movements, preclude the supposition of their tiny bodies being the cases of clockwork.