Fig. 20.
III.—WITH ROPE AND STRING.
THE SKIPPING-ROPE TRICK.
(Hamilton’s l’Entente Cordiale.)
Provide a skipping-rope, and, having had your wrists firmly bound together, let the person who thus tied your hands pass one end of the rope between your arms and join its ends, by which act the cord and your united arms will form two endless links or rings, to separate which, and instantaneously, will seem materially impossible.
However, it can be done.
Pull at the cord as if to make sure it is held fast, and, while so doing, catch between the wrists the part of the rope that happens to be there, and work the rope up so as to get the looped end through the handkerchief in your hands. Through this loop pass your left hand. Turn slightly to the right and jerk the rope a little, when it will fall to the floor, while your hands remain attached.
In the couple of seconds which this feat requires, move your hands up and down mysteriously, to baffle the attention of the bystanders on what you are doing.