Chapter III: , "The Hydrostatic Tube."

We now return, for a moment, to our wineglass which was left at the conclusion of the trick, with a celluloid disc adhering to its base. The conjurer will naturally want to get rid of this disc at the earliest opportunity, and so he provides his own opportunity by performing this

Feat of Dexterity

First of all, the conjurer says that the base of the glass is wet. He takes out a clean handkerchief to dry it and in so doing wipes away the celluloid disc and puts it into his pocket. He pours a little of the water out of the glass, which should not be more than about half full, especially during the first rehearsals!

The feat consists in looping the loop with the glass, by swinging it right round with the hand, without spilling the water. It is as well to rehearse the feat in the garden!

Pick up the glass by holding the back of the hand towards the table and getting the stem of the glass between the second and third fingers. Extend the arm and then, with a quick semicircular sweep of the arm, which should be held stiffly, bring the glass right round and deposit it on the other side of the table. You want a little nerve, and the feat is not difficult, but it appears to be.

Japanese performers present a very spectacular feat of this kind in which they use two large buckets tied to the ends of a rope. The buckets are swung about at an alarming pace and in "impossible" positions without a drop of water being spilled; centrifugal force explains the mystery.

The Floating Pin

This is a "quieter" trick. Give someone a bowl of water and ask them to lay a pin on the surface of the water and leave it there. The pin naturally sinks to the bottom of the bowl, whereupon you complain that your directions have not been carried out properly; they are not likely to be unless the person to whom you hand the pin happens to know the secret of the trick.

Lay a cigarette paper gently on the top of the water and put the pin on the paper. In a few moments the paper will sink, leaving the pin floating on the surface of the water.

Washing a Card

You can begin this trick by asking someone if they have ever tried to wash a playing card with water; if so, have they noticed the effect. You ask for a pack of cards and begin the experiment by holding the pack in the left hand, with the fingers on the lower side and the thumb on the other.

There is no harm in saying that the experiment is most successful with a five-spot card, and you put, say, the five of clubs on the bottom of the pack and therefore hold the pack with that card facing the audience. Then, this is what you apparently do.

Dip a finger into some water and rub on the pip at the lower corner nearest to you. To dry the card you take your handkerchief from your pocket and dab the corner. The audience see that you have apparently washed away one of the pips.

Turn the cards over in your hand, so that the blank corner is now at the top and repeat the experiment with the pip which is now in the position occupied by the first. This action reduces the number of pips on the card to three, arranged diagonally across the face of the card.

Repeat the experiment, but this time wash away the two corner pips at once, leaving only one pip in the centre of the card. Then wash away this pip and you have a blank card, which you hand out for examination.

_WASHING OFF THE SPOTS_

{hold five of clubs, then wash off one club at a time until all gone} _SPECIAL CARDS REQUIRED_

Fig. 6]

To begin with, the request for the loan of a pack of cards is not quite what it seems. You arrange with a kind friend in the audience to "find" a pack of cards when you ask for one, and that person has no difficulty in "finding" the pack which you have prepared for the trick and placed in some convenient hiding-place in the house.

The disappearance of the first pip is easily managed: You dip a finger into the water, shake it, and rub the corner with a dry finger. Then shake the pack as though you were trying to dry the card; this action enables you to turn the pack, in a natural way, with its face towards the floor and thus the audience do not see that the pip is still on the card. Then you take your handkerchief from your pocket, and in so doing secretly take out a five of clubs with one spot missing behind the handkerchief. It is not a difficult matter, under cover of the handkerchief and while pretending to dab the corner of the card, to slip the prepared card on the face of the pack. Having done that, show your hands and the handkerchief to your audience, to let them see that you have not merely slipped the pip off the card, but have apparently dissolved it in water and removed all trace of it.

Directly after you have shown this card on the bottom of the pack turn the pack over in the hand, so that the blank corner is now at the top. Now if you bend the third and little fingers of the left hand slightly they will conceal the pip at that corner, but before you bend the fingers let the audience see the card. Now you have to exchange that card for another with only three pips on it, the pips being diagonally across the card.

This prepared card is at the back of the pack. While you are talking bring the right hand to the front of the pack, push up the back card with the first finger of the left hand, extend the fingers of the right hand and push the card to the tips of the fingers of the right hand, at the same time slide the card down on to the face of the pack.

This movement takes a long time to explain in print, but it is done in the fraction of a second. All you apparently do is to bring the right hand up to the pack to square up the cards.

Directly you have the "three card" at the face of the pack, bend the third and little fingers slightly and thus hide the place where the missing pip ought to be. The card is now apparently the same card which the audience saw before--a five spot with one spot missing.

This time, when you dip a finger into the water and pretend to wash away a spot you must work rather quickly, and as you take away the tips of the third and little fingers to enable you to wash away the pip which is supposed to be there, you must bring the right hand over the spot at once, otherwise the audience will see that the spot is not there! This time you have the advantage of being able to show the blank corner directly you take away your right hand. Take out your handkerchief, dab the corner with it and return it to your pocket.

Now tell your audience that if you wish to rub away two spots at once you have to use both hands. Take the cards in the right hand for a moment while you dip a finger of the left hand into the water. In the act of passing the cards from one hand to the other you slide the next card from the back to the front; this card has one pip in the centre. (If your cards have no index corners you can use the ace for this card.)

While you dip the finger of the left hand into the water you must hold the pack with the face card downwards; take it, in the same position, in the left hand, while you dip a finger of the right hand into the water. Then rub first one corner with the left hand and then the other corner with the right hand and bring up the pack with the card facing the audience, but hold the pack in both hands with the hands at the corners (top and bottom) as though you were merely hiding the pips there. Someone is sure to tell you to "take away your hands," and, apparently reluctantly, you do so, disclosing the card with the single pip in the centre. The laugh will then be in your favour, and you take advantage of this temporary diversion to slip the next card from the back to the front of the pack. Then hold the pack by the sides in the right hand with the fingers right over the centre, and the audience will think that the single pip is still there, being hidden by the fingers.

To conclude the trick you can say that your fingers are damp enough to manage one pip and you pretend to rub it off the face of the card, which is thus blank.

Take this card away in your right hand, and offer it to someone on your left hand for examination, taking care to turn the pack down with its face to the floor as you remove the blank card, otherwise the audience will see the next card, which is the one-pip card.

The object of handing the blank card to someone on your left is to enable you to turn in that direction in a natural way, because directly you have turned you drop the pack you are holding in the left-hand pocket of your coat (or dinner jacket) and take from it another pack, from which the five of clubs has been abstracted. This is important because a juvenile audience is merciless to an amateur conjurer as a rule and someone is sure to say: "Let us have a look at the cards." Don't be in too great a hurry to hand them out for examination; always "play" with the younger members of your audience when you get the chance to do so. Of course, if the children are so exceedingly well behaved that they do not ask to see the cards you must suggest that "perhaps you would like to have a look at the cards," but I hope for your sake that the children are not of that kind. An audience of very prim and proper children may be easy to a conjurer, because they do not attempt to catch him out, but in another sense they are very difficult because it is by no means easy to engage and hold their attention. I much prefer an audience of children who are quite natural and who are therefore always eager to pounce upon any little weak point--or point which they think is weak--in a trick.

The preparation of the trick cards required for this trick is not a difficult matter. If expense is no object the best plan is to buy several packs of cards, with the backs all alike. A blank card usually goes with each pack. If the cards have no index corners you need prepare only two trick cards--one with four spots on it and one with three. To get the spots, put a ten-spot card in cold water and let it soak until you can peel away the face of it. Dry it on clean blotting paper. Then cut out the spots very neatly and paste them on two of the blank cards, taking care to get the pips at the corners in the right positions.

The other method of preparing the cards (presuming that you do not wish to invest in several packs) is to float off the backs of a couple of cards, dry them, paste white paper on them and then stick pips on the paper. The drawback to this method is that the paper will probably not match the paper on the faces of the other cards in the pack.