1. Your assistant’s two hands being thus occupied, you will have no sort

of indiscretion to fear. Stepping back a few feet, direct your assistant to let the coin drop; and the impact against the bottom of the glass will be heard by the entire assemblage. When the handkerchief is raised the coin is no longer in the glass, but has made its way to your hand or to the pocket of a spectator. Let it be examined, and it will be found to be really the coin that has been previously marked. In order to perform this trick it is necessary to have a disk of glass of the same diameter as a silver dollar (Fig. 2). Hide this disk, A (Fig. 3), in the palm of your right hand, turned toward you. This will not prevent you from holding the coin that has been confided to you between the thumb and forefinger of the same hand. While your hand is concealed by the handkerchief in which it is thought that you placed the coin, you shift the latter and give the assistant the glass disk to hold, by the edge, of course, and not by the flat surface, so that the substitution that you have made cannot be perceived by the touch. [Illustration: DISAPPEARANCE OF A SILVER DOLLAR.] After the trick has been performed, do not be afraid to let the person who has held the coin, and who is thoroughly astonished, examine the glass and its contents at his leisure. The glass disk is entirely invisible in the water, and if, as it is well to do, you have taken care to select a glass whose bottom is perfectly plane and of the same diameter as the disk (Fig. 2), the latter will remain adherent to the glass even when it is inverted to empty the water in order to prove once more to the spectators that it contains nothing but clear water. THE SPIRIT SLATES. Two ordinary wooden-framed slates are presented to the spectators, and examined in succession by them. A small piece of chalk is introduced between the two slates, which are then united by a rubber band and held aloft in the prestidigitateur’s right hand. Then, in the general silence, is heard the scratching of the chalk, which is writing between the two slates the answer to a question asked by one of the spectators--the name of a card thought of or the number of spots obtained by throwing two dice. The rubber band having been removed and the slates separated, one of them is seen to be covered with writing. This prodigy, which at first sight seems to be so mysterious, is very easily performed. [Illustration: SPIRIT SLATES.] The writing was done in advance; but upon the written side of the slate, A, there had been placed a thin sheet of black cardboard which hid the characters written with chalk. The two sides of this slate thus appeared absolutely clean. The slate B is first given out for examination, and after it has been returned to him, the operator says: “Do you want to examine the other one also?” And then, without any haste, he makes a pass analogous to that employed in shuffling cards. The slate A being held by the thumb and forefinger of the left hand and the slate B between the fore and middle finger of the right hand (Fig. 1), the two hands are brought together. But at the moment at which the slates are superposed, the thumb and forefinger of the right hand grasp the slate A, while at the same time the fore and middle finger of the left hand take the slate B. Then the two hands separate anew, and the slate that has already been examined, instead of the second one, is put into the hands of the spectator. This shifting, done with deliberation, is entirely invisible. During the second examination the slate A is laid flat upon a table, the written face turned upward and covered with black cardboard. The slate having been sufficiently examined, and been returned to the operator, the latter lays it upon the first, and both are then surrounded by the rubber band. It is then that the operator holds up the slates with the left hand, of which one sees but the thumb, while upon the posterior face of the second slate the nail of his middle finger makes a sound resembling that produced by chalk when written with. When the operator judges that this little comedy has lasted quite long enough, he lays the two slates horizontally upon his table, taking care this time that the non-prepared slate shall be beneath (Fig. 2). It is upon it that the black cardboard rests; and the other slate, on being raised, shows the characters that it bears, and that are stated to have been written by an invisible spirit that slipped in between the two slates. SECOND SIGHT. “The trick is performed as follows,” says Judge James Bartlett in the _Popular Science News_: “Each person in the audience is presented with a slip of paper, upon which to write anything he or she may choose. The paper written upon is immediately secreted by the writer, as much care as possible being taken that no one else sees what is written upon it. The performer, who has been absent from the room while this is being done, is brought in and led, as if in a state of trance, to a chair within full view of every one present. A light piece of drapery is thrown over him so that he is completely covered by it, and yet it is thin enough to be translucent, and it can be seen he has not gone down through the floor or ascended up through the ceiling. The audience is told the drapery prevents the sphere or influence or spell that surrounds him from being dissipated. He now begins and repeats, word for word, the sentences written upon any or all the slips of paper. Nothing can be more astonishing; the paper has not left the possession of the writers; it is equally certain that it is impossible that another person could have seen what was thereon written, and yet the trick is as simple as it is surprising, and that is certainly saying a great deal. “The explanation is as follows: In order to write anything upon the slip of paper given out, one must have something firm and flat upon which to place it, and for this purpose bits of pasteboard of a convenient size are handed about the audience. The pasteboard, however, is not solid, as it seems to be; the uppermost layer of paper can be separated at one of the edges from the layers beneath it, and into this slip white paper introduced. The uppermost layer of paper is blacked with crayon or soft pencil on its under side, and whatever is written upon the paper resting upon it is faithfully stenciled or traced upon the white paper inserted. The pasteboards, being collected, are taken out of the room and given to the performer by his assistant, who may or may not be a confederate. That is, if the performer is very skillful, he may dupe his assistant as well as his audience. He may tell him, for instance, it is necessary for him to have these pasteboard rests and pass his fingers over them so that he can become _en rapport_ with the person with whom they were in contact. It is better, however, at least at first, to have a confederate. The rest is easy enough. The inserted slips of tell-tale papers are collected and carried with him by the performer, who manages to read them either through a hole in the drapery or by the light that sifts through it as he sits covered up in his chair with his back to the audience. It is well, sometimes, not to have enough pasteboard cards to go round the audience, and give apparently at haphazard a book, an atlas or portfolio, which, of course, has been neatly covered with paper or cloth and supplied with blackened and with white paper as are the pasteboard cards. “If anything should happen that would prevent reading any particular strip of paper, the performer may at once say that he does not pretend to be able to read all, but only such sentences as appear to his mental vision. This will add to the effect and make the trick appear all the more mysterious. In supplying pencils to your audience be sure to give them good, hard ones, that will require some pressure to make the writing legible; be careful, too, that the paper with which you furnish them is rather thin, so that you will get a good tracing on that you have inserted in the pasteboard rest. As each slip is read by the performer the assistant should ask if any one in the audience wrote that sentence and if it is correctly repeated, and then, stepping to the writer and taking the slip from him or her, he should himself read it aloud and show it to any one desirous of seeing it; this enhances the wonder and interest of the performance, and also gives the performer time to decipher the next slip. It is well to have the sentences take the form of questions which the performer can read, comment upon, and answer in an oracular way, especially as this takes up time, and consequently gives fewer selected slips to read during the period allotted to the trick; for to read a few is quite as wonderful as to read many. “Now let the master of occult art cap the climax. Let him again be led from the room, ostensibly to have his magic sphere renewed, and let some one among the audience write the name of a deceased person, together with their own, on a slip of paper. Lay a good deal of stress on the requirement that one name shall be that of a person deceased; this, of course, being only to mystify the audience. When the names have been written the performer is to enter the room. He does so with the sleeve of his coat rolled up, and his arm bared to the elbow. After showing there is nothing upon his arm, he turns down his sleeve, readjusts his cuff, and proceeds with his trick. He first names the person whom the audience has chosen, in his absence, to write the name; he requests that person to crumple up the slip of paper upon which the name is written and rub it well over his arm just above his cuff, ‘so that the writing will penetrate through his sleeve,’ he says; now turning up his sleeve he shows the writing that was upon the paper in blood-red letters upon his bared arm. The manner of performing this part of the trick is, having ascertained, as before, the writing upon the slip of paper by means of the tracing, to write or print it with red ink mixed with a little glycerine, or red printer’s ink, or oil color and turpentine, upon paper which is to be fastened upon the inside of that part of the performer’s coat sleeve which he instructs the person who has written the name upon the paper to rub with the paper. The paper may be neatly pinned to the lining of the sleeve, care being taken that the pins do not scratch when the sleeve is turned down.” MAGIC CABINETS. The apparatus by means of which objects of various sizes--a card, a bird, a child, a woman, etc.--may be made to apparently disappear play a large part in the exhibitions of magicians, and also in pantomimes and fairy scenes. Among such apparatus there are some that are based upon ingenious mechanical combinations, while others bring in the aid of optics. We shall examine a few of them. THE MAGIC PORTFOLIO. This is an apparatus which an itinerant physicist might have been seen a few years ago exhibiting in the squares and at street corners. His method was to have a spectator draw a card, which he then placed between the four sheets of paper which, folded crossways, formed the flaps of his portfolio. When he opened the latter again a few instants afterward the card had disappeared, or rather had become transformed. Profiting then by the surprise of his spectators, the showman began to offer them his magic portfolio at the price of five cents for the small size and ten for the large. [Illustration: MAGIC PORTFOLIOS, ENVELOPES, AND BOXES.] The portfolio was made of two square pieces of cardboard connected by four strings, these latter being fixed in such a way that when the two pieces of cardboard were open and juxtaposed the external edge of each of them was connected with the inner edge of the other. This constituted, after a manner, a double hinge that permitted of the portfolio being opened from both sides. To one pair of strings there were glued, back to back, two sheets of paper, which, when folded over, formed the flaps of the portfolio. It was only necessary, then, to open the latter in one direction or the other to render it impossible to open more than one of the two sets of flaps. This device is one that permits of a large number of tricks being performed, since every object put under one of the sets of flaps will apparently disappear or be converted into something else, at the will of the prestidigitateur. MAGIC ENVELOPES. This trick is a simplification of the foregoing. The affair consists of several sheets of paper of different colors folded over, one upon the other. A card inclosed within the middle envelope, over which have been folded all the others, is found to have disappeared when the flaps are opened again. The secret of the trick is very simple. One of the inner sheets of paper--the second one, usually--is double, and, when folded, forms two envelopes that are back to back. It is only necessary, then, to open one or the other of these latter to cause the appearance or disappearance or transformation of such objects as have been inclosed within it. MAGIC BOXES. Magic boxes are of several styles, according to the size of the objects that one desires to make disappear. There is no one who has not seen a magician put one or more pigeons into the drawer of one of these boxes, and, after closing it, open it to find that the birds have disappeared. Such boxes contain two drawers, which, when pulled out, seem to be but one; and it is only necessary, then, to pull out the inner one or leave it closed in order to render the inclosed birds visible or invisible. In order to cause the disappearance of smaller objects, trick performers often employ a jewel box, and after putting the object (a ring, for example) into this, they hand it to some person and ask him to hold it, requesting him at the same time to wrap it up in several sheets of paper. But this simple motion has permitted the performer to cause the ring to drop into his hand through a small trap opening beneath the box. Yet, while he is doing this the spectators think that they hear the noise made by the ring striking against the sides of the box. But that is only an illusion; for the noise that is heard proceeds from a small hammer which is hidden within the cover under the escutcheon, and which is rendered movable when the latter is pressed upon by the performer. The box can thus be shaken without any noise being heard within it, and the spectators are led to believe that the object has disappeared. Double-bottomed boxes are so well known that it is useless to describe them. Sometimes the double bottom is hidden in the cover, and at others it rests against one of the sides. Such boxes permit of the disappearance or substitution of objects that are not very thick, such as a note, an image, or a card. THE TRAVELING BOTTLE AND GLASS. Upon a table, at the rising of the curtain, are observed a bottle and a glass, the latter full of wine up to the brim. The prestidigitateur pours into the bottle half of the liquid, “which otherwise,” he remarks, “might slop over during the voyage.” Then two cylinders of the same diameter as the bottle are made before the eyes of the spectators out of two sheets of paper and four pins. [Illustration: TRICK WITH A BOTTLE AND A GLASS OF WINE.] These are designed to cover the bottle and the glass, which have been separated from each other by a short interval (Fig. 1). Instantaneously, and in an invisible manner, the two objects change places twice, and yet there is never anything in the paper cylinders, which are, ostensibly, torn into a hundred bits. Fig. 3 unravels the mystery. The bottle is of varnished tin, and bottomless. It covers a second bottle that is similar, but a little smaller, and in the center there is concealed a glass similar to the one that has been shown, but empty. It receives the half of the wine that was poured from the first glass. This operation necessarily contributes toward convincing the spectators that they have before them an ordinary bottle provided with a bottom and capable of containing a liquid. The operator first covers the bottle with one of the paper cylinders as if to ascertain whether it has the proper diameter, but immediately removes it and places it upright upon the table. What no one can suspect, however, he has at the same time lifted the first bottle by slightly compressing the paper. It is then the second bottle that is seen, and which is precisely like the other, the labels of both being turned toward the same side and exhibiting a slight tear or a few identical spots designed to aid in the deception. The operator, having finished his palaver, places the empty cylinder upon the second bottle and covers the glass with the one in which the first bottle is concealed (Fig 2). The magic wand is then brought into play, and after this the paper cylinder alone is lifted at the side where the glass was in the first place seen, while at the opposite side, the bottle, on being removed, exposes the glass that it concealed. The operation is begun over again in the opposite direction; and, finally, under pretense of once again showing that either paper cylinder can be used indifferently, the operator replaces upon the second bottle the cylinder that still contains the first one, unbeknown to the spectators. This is done so rapidly that the action is apparently a gesture, but nothing more is needed to free the cylinder of its contents and reëstablish things in their former state. DISAPPEARANCE OF AN APPLE AND A NINEPIN. To an apple and a ninepin, the principal objects with which this trick is performed, are added as accessories a napkin, a large vessel of dark blue glass, and a cone of coarse paper, which is made on the spot by molding it over the ninepin. First Disappearance (Fig. 1).--The apple, “in order that it maybe more in sight,” is placed upon the inverted glass, V, under the paper cone, while the inverted ninepin is covered with the napkin, S, through which it is held. All at once the napkin, quickly seized by the two corners, is vigorously shaken, and the ninepin has disappeared, or, rather, it is found upon the glass in place of the apple, which has passed into the prestidigitateur’s pocket. [Illustration: TRICK WITH AN APPLE AND A NINEPIN.] Second Disappearance (Fig. 2).--The apple, first placed upon the table, is thrown invisibly toward the paper cone, under which, in fact, it is found. And the ninepin? The prestidigitateur “had forgotten” to tell it where it was to go when he sent the apple in its place. As he gives up trying to find it and seizes the blue vessel in order to put it in place, it is seen that the ninepin, driven by the apple, has passed underneath. Fig. 3 renders an explanation scarcely necessary. At the moment that the paper cone was made, the ninepin, A, was covered with a dummy, B, of thin metal, which remained in the cone when the latter was removed. In the napkin, formed of two napkins sewed together by their edges, was concealed, between the two fabrics, a small disk of cardboard of the same diameter as the base of the ninepin. The latter was allowed to fall secretly behind the table into a box lined with silk waste, only the cardboard disk being held, thanks to which the napkin preserved the same form that it possessed when the ninepin was beneath it, as shown in Fig.