The Magician undertakes to fling the egg by this impromptu sling farther than David did the stone that slew the giant, and, what is more, make it alight in any place previously searched and found empty.
Then, taking the handkerchief by one corner, it is shaken about, and the egg, mysteriously vanished, is found in the designated spot.
Explanation.—The egg is a small one, hard-boiled. There are two handkerchiefs alike sewn together at the edge all round. The one considered as the outside has a slit in the middle, through which the egg glides as into a bag, when the handkerchief is lifted with it in the middle. The egg is let slip into one corner, which is that held by the performer, while the handkerchief is shaken in the air, and thus proven to be empty. A second egg is presently deposited in the place where one was to be found.
V.—WITH RINGS.
Fig. 34.
THE PENETRATIVE RING.
Fasten one end of a needleful of silk, of the colour of a handkerchief, to the middle of the handkerchief, and to its hanging end tie a brass ring. Always keep the ring on your own side, so that no one can see it while you shake and rumple the handkerchief. Offer to send a ring through a cup and saucer and the table they are on.
Take the borrowed ring in your left hand, and keep it there; pretend to pass it to the right hand, and ask one of the party to step forward and hold the (mock) ring in the handkerchief. Now that the cup and saucer are empty, place the cup in the saucer at the centre of the table, and ask the person to hold the ring in the handkerchief over the cup. The party will hear the ring fall into the cup, yet at your command it passes into a hat, which you hold under the table. In so doing, you put the real ring into the hat. Cry out some cabalistic words, and negligently take the handkerchief. The party may inspect the cup and saucer, but there the sorcery does not lie. The hat has but to be held upside down for the ring to fall out on the table.