TO ADD FIVE TO SIX AND YET MAKE BUT NINE.
Having drawn six-straight lines, by adding five more, as in figure 3, only Nine is seen.
Fig. 3.
TO CARRY HOT COALS IN THE HAND.
Cover the palm with sand, ashes, or any non-conductor, and calmly put the live coals on it. Which ancient “sell” will be found in the first German mediæval play, entitled “The Burning Iron,” by Hans Sachs, “performed for the first time in Nuremberg in the year 1531.” A peasant woman suspects her husband of some crime, and she arranges with her mother that he must pass under the ordeal of the “burning iron”—that is, a piece of iron made red-hot must be picked up with his bare hand, and carried round the room. If his hand remain unscathed, he is innocent; if he be burnt, then he is guilty. The husband promises to undergo the ordeal; but before doing so, manages to place, unseen by his wife, a flat piece of wood upon the hollow of his hand, and with this deception he passes through the ordeal successfully. Mr. Hanky Panky believes this gentleman to have been his “long-lost brother.”
II.—TRICKS WITH COINS.
Fig. 4.