To make one or several Five-Franc pieces travel invisibly from the one Hand to the other; and afterwards to pass through a Table and fall into a Tumbler held beneath.
"I
am about, gentlemen, to show you a trick: which I venture to think will fully justify the appropriateness of the term prestidigitation, applied to the art of conjuring. This word, as you are aware, is formed from two Latin words, which together signify nimbleness of fingers.* You will see what an extraordinary degree of rapidity may be attained in the performance of an act of a rather complex character. Will some one be kind enough to lend me a five-franc piece?"*This is not strictly correct. See previous note.--ED.
(It is always advisable to borrow the articles you make use of, as you thus preclude any idea that they are specially prepared; and besides, the spectators from whom you
borrow the articles take the more interest in the trick, on account of having, as they imagine, indirectly assisted in its performance.)
"Now, gentlemen, having lent me the coin, I will ask you to lend me in addition--your best attention.
"You are doubtless aware, ladies and gentlemen, that when an object travels with extraordinary speed, it is impossible for the eye to follow it. Take, for example, the bullet fired from a rifle, which travels, on an average, more than 1000 yards in a second. I am about to pass this coin from my right hand to my left at a similar rate of speed."
You show, with apparent carelessness, the inside of the left hand, so that all may see that there is nothing in it. (N.B.--You should never say "you observe there is nothing here, or there," because you may thereby suggest a suspicion that you are about to cause the appearance of something in that quarter. It is better to let the spectator note the fact of his own accord.) You then take the coin with the tips of the fingers of that hand, and say--
"Here is the coin. I take it in the right hand and hold my hands wide apart. I throw the coin with great force towards the left hand, and say "Pass!"
(Here you open the left hand and exhibit the coin.) "You see it has obeyed."
Each of these sentences is accompanied by its appropriate piece of sleight-of-hand. These we proceed to describe, recapitulating the trick from the commencement.
The Flying Coins
While the borrowed coin is being handed to you by the spectators, you secretly take another from your pochette, and palm it in the right hand.
1.
Holding the coin which has been lent to you with the tips of the fingers of the left hand, you bring the right hand towards the left, in order to take the coin in the former hand.
2.
In so doing, the palmed coin being just over the palm of the left hand, you secretly let it fall therein, while with the fingers and thumb of the right hand you take away the visible coin (see Fig. 11). Consequently, although you have removed the borrowed coin from the left hand, another still remains there, though unseen by the spectators, inasmuch as the hand remains partially closed.
3.
Under these circumstances, the pretended passage of the coin from one hand to the other becomes a very simple matter. At the moment when you pronounce the word "Pass," you quickly open the left hand and show the coin which you have just before secretly let fall therein, and at the same time open the right hand, in which you palm and keep concealed the other coin. This last mentioned coin, which thereby vanishes from the sight of the spectators, appears to have passed into the left hand.
4.
This sleight, neatly executed, deceives the eyes completely; but if you desire to render the effect still more startling, you may have the borrowed coin marked beforehand, and exchange it for the palmed coin by the methods described previously. You pass it (apparently) to the left hand as above described, and on showing it, have it identified by means of the mark.
"Although you must all, gentlemen, be pretty well satisfied of the genuineness of the experiment I have just shown you, I will give you a still more convincing proof; I will repeat the trick, and let you hear the sound of the coin in its flight, so that you may by that means know the precise moment of its arrival at its destination. But for that
purpose I shall require a second five-franc piece."
(The spectators naturally believe that one coin only has been hitherto employed, the second having been put back again into the pochette.)
The loan of a second coin having been procured, you lay the two side by side on the table. "In this case gentlemen, the experiment will be much more easy to understand. I am about to take one coin in each hand, and at the moment when the coin passed from the left hand reaches the right, it will strike upon the other coin, and you will know by the sound the precise moment when it reaches its destination.
"Now, attention! I place this coin in my left hand, then I take this other in my right, and
The Flying Coins
I say "Pass!" It has done so, you see," and you show that the two coins have come together.
Explanation.--
In the act of (apparently) putting the coin in the left hand, "palm" it in the right. 1.
Keeping this first coin palmed in the right hand, pick up the second with the tips of the fingers of the same hand.
2.
Hold your arms wide apart, and at the moment when you say "Pass," make the two coins chink together by smartly closing the right hand, in which the first piece is already hidden.
3.
You then open both hands, and show the result of the trick. 4.
Up to this point the "patter" may or may not have carried conviction to the minds of the spectators, but in any case the trick is sure to have somewhat puzzled them. We will proceed to make it still more interesting by means of a few little artifices which, in repeating it for a second time, may be added in order to give it additional zest. "I will repeat the experiment," you remark, "and perform it more slowly."
You this time really place the coin in the left hand, still imitating the movement which you used in order not to place it there, or in other words, in palming it.
(Some performers, when employing the feint just mentioned, purposely make a show of awkwardness, in order to provoke suspicion. This is a mistake. Why suggest to those who have no conception of such a thing, the possibility of the coin being palmed? The feint is in reality only used for the benefit of those who, having some idea of the trick, may entertain a suspicion of the actual fact. To these, and these only, is the sham proof directed.)
You now take, as before, the second coin with the tips of the fingers of the right hand, and make believe to be just about to "pass" the coin from the left hand to the right, as you did in the former instance.
As you make a slight pause at this point, and purposely glance towards the spectators with a crafty kind of expression, it is more than probable that some one or more among them will fancy that you have kept the coin in the right hand, and will either openly assert the fact, or intimate their suspicion by means of gestures, or at the very least a smile, of incredulity.
It would be indiscreet to open the hand in order to show the spectators that they are mistaken. They would be very apt under such circumstances to perceive that they had been intentionally "sold." You should appear, on the contrary, not to understand the meaning of the interruption, and show indirectly that they are wrong, as follows:- "But I am forgetting," you remark. "I always turn up my sleeves before executing this trick, and I have omitted to do so."
This remark enables you, under the pretext of turning up the sleeves, to put the coins back on the table, and so to show that they really were as you had stated.
The Flying Coins
Those spectators who may have privately expressed suspicion to their friends, as well as those who have openly made similar remarks, in order, as they imagined, to catch the conjuror tripping, will probably be not only surprised, but somewhat annoyed at finding themselves mistaken; and you must therefore be prepared for a second attack. Again you begin to repeat the trick as above described, still really placing the coin in the left hand, and you extend your arms as though with the intention of "passing" it into the right hand. The coin not having been put unmistakably in the right hand, some one of the spectators may still doubt whether it is really there. In such case, if any observation is made to that effect--" Good gracious, sir!" you reply, in a tone of
good-humoured irony, "if you know the trick yourself, do at least be generous enough to allow the rest of the company to enjoy the pleasure of the illusion. I regret to have to tell you, however, that you are quite mistaken in your supposition, for the coin is really in the hand in which I professed to put it." (You show it accordingly.) "You must
know, surely, sir, that I wouldn't deceive you."
If, on the contrary, nobody makes any remark, you lay down the coins on the table, as if struck by a new idea. "Stay, gentlemen," you remark, "I will finish with a pass which must carry complete conviction to your minds. I have told you of the extraordinary speed with which the coins pass from the one hand to the other. Well, that speed is such that when we impart it to a coin we can make it pass even through a table without leaving any opening whatever.
"The explanation of the phenomenon is this: the hole in the table is made by the coin with such rapidity, that the very moment it is made it closes again by force of the molecular attraction of the wood. Come, we will try the experiment.
"I take one coin in each hand. I place my left hand under the table, while the right remains above it, and then, at my command, the coins will come together. Listen. PASS! The coin has passed accordingly."
As you say the word "Pass!" you open the right hand, at the same time palming the coin which it holds, while you at the same time chink the coin which is in the left against another coin which you have taken therein in the act of passing the hand under the table. This last-mentioned coin has been beforehand stuck with soft wax under the frame of the table on the side remote from the spectators. It is not only perfectly easy to attach the coin in this position, even under the eyes of those present, but it is also very easy to get possession of it again by reason of the projection of its edges beyond the frame on either side, the frame being narrower than the width of the coin.
"I can perform this experiment," you resume, "with two coins, and even with four, if the condition of the atmosphere does not prevent it, but you will readily understand, gentlemen, that in that case the pass becomes more difficult, and that I can only overcome this difficulty by imparting to the coins a still greater velocity." (Here you borrow two more coins.)
"Come! before we pass them through the table, suppose we first try how they will travel through the air."
The Flying Coins
You take two coins, which you pretend to place in the left hand, but which you really palm in the right, as in the trick already described, remarking at the same time--"I place these two coins in the left hand." Then taking the two other coins with the tips of the fingers of the right hand, holding the arms far apart, and chinking the coins one upon the other in the act of closing the right hand, you say, "Pass!"*
*The best mode of producing the necessary chink is to make a quick "catching" movement with the hand, thereby jerking the two coins out of the palm against those held by the fingers. The sound produced by this method is much sharper and clearer than that caused by closing the hand on the coins as above described.--ED.
"Bravo!" you exclaim, throwing the four coins on the table, "a complete success. I will now endeavour to pass the four coins through the table."
You have at hand, on your table, a tumbler, of a tolerably cylindrical shape. You take the four coins with the right hand, and thence really place them in the left, still
imitating as closely as possible the same movement you used when you did not really place them there, though without any appearance of special design in the matter. (I cannot too often repeat that you should avoid as far as possible suggesting by suspicion of the artifices you employ, even at the cost of special pains to prevent them, as in the present instance; for if the spectators to whom you give an opening for a particular supposition are taken in by a feint, they may take their revenge at some unlooked-for moment.)
"Ah! by the way," you remark, laying down the coins from the left hand on the table, and taking the glass in the same hand, "I forgot to show you the tumbler which I am about to use." The transparency of the glass enables all to see that there is nothing in it, and you replace the glass on the table, taking care to leave it laying down, the opening turned to the left hand.
It is prudent, after having so often employed the "palm," to vary the mode of getting rid of the coins from that which you have already used, so as not to arouse fresh
suspicions. You therefore conclude the trick by the and of the tourniquet. This
particular sleight has the advantage that four coins may thereby be easily vanished at once.
"Here are the four coins," you remark, "holding them as in Fig. 4." I take them in the right hand in order to have greater power" (here you make the movement indicated for the tourniquet), "and hold them suspended above the table. Now, with the other hand I hold this glass under the table, in order to catch the coins as I pass them through; I cannot, however, perform this marvellous trick until you are all so attentive as to be able to see the coins pass." (Here you pause for a few seconds.) "This is a favourable moment, I think. All listen and watch. Attention! PASS!!"
At this instant, the right hand, which appears to hold the coins, opens as though under the influence of a nervous spasm. The coins are at the same moment heard to fall into the glass, producing a very striking effect.
The Flying Coins
Explanation.--When the tourniquet is made, the four coins fall into the hollow of the left hand, as explained in the section treating of that sleigh. The two hands then part company. The left, containing the coins, drops slowly down, half open, and so turned that the spectators cannot see what it contains, while the other hand is elevated, swelled out with its imaginary contents.
I have above recommended the reader to keep the glass laying down, because, without this precaution, the four coins, which he will naturally have pushed forward a little towards the tips of the fingers of the left hand, would be likely by too sudden a contact with the glass to chink against it, and so betray the secret of their hiding-place, while, by adopting the plan above described, the fingers stretching a little forward, you are enabled to take the glass and allow the coins to settle themselves gently against its interior surface.*
*By a very slight variation of the mode of procedure, this unnatural laying down of the glass may be avoided. To this end, the coins, after the tourniquet is made, should he held fast, by a slight contraction of the second and third fingers, against the lower joints of those fingers. When you pick up the glass, do so with the extreme tips of the fingers and thumb, the opening of the glass being outwards, towards the back of the hand. Pass the glass, thus held, under the table, and when there, move it round by a turn of the fingers so as to bring the opening below the palm, when by slightly relaxing your grip of the coins, they may be made to drop into it.--ED.
Matters being thus arranged, you carry the glass under the table, and at the word
"pass," by raising a little the second and third fingers of the left hand, you let the coins fall to the bottom of the glass
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The Flying Coins
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