IV.—WITH HANDKERCHIEFS.
THE MELTING EGG AND THE BEWITCHED HANDKERCHIEF.
A glass is shown, and can be examined by the company. Into it is put an egg, and the whole is covered with a handkerchief. To prove that the egg is really within the vessel, it may be heard striking its sides.
Mr. Hanky Panky stands at a distance and rubs a small coloured handkerchief up into a ball in his hands, when it is suddenly seen to become an egg.
Returning to the holder of the glass vase, the handkerchief is taken away, and, instead of the egg, a coloured handkerchief shown. The handkerchief can be examined.
Explanation.—Run a fine black thread through a perforated egg, and fasten the other end of the thread to the middle of an ordinary handkerchief. (If you are skilful of hand, you can have a bent pin at the end of the thread and perform with a borrowed white handkerchief.)
You only pretend to put the egg within the glass vessel, and really place a small coloured handkerchief therein, while the egg remains attached to the large handkerchief.
You have an egg made of enamelled tin in your hand, which you conceal with a duplicate coloured handkerchief, as you state your intention of executing the double change of egg into handkerchief, and vice versâ.
As you speak, you dexterously stuff the little handkerchief into the egg, and in holding up the latter hide the aperture with your thumb. When you quickly lift the white handkerchief you carry away the egg, and discover the coloured one.
With practice, this is a most effective hanky-pankian feat.
TO UNDO A KNOTTED HANDKERCHIEF BY A SHAKE.
Mr. Panky takes up a soft silk handkerchief, and holding the ends in his hands throws the right hand end over the left, and pulls it through as if tying a knot. Again throwing the same end over the left, he passes the latter to one of the company to pull it.
Fig. 32.
His left thumb holds the handkerchief just behind the knot, while he is pulling the right hand end against the person. He facetiously begs the pull to be hard, as the handkerchief is a borrowed one.
In the same way he seems to tie knots, really tying the right hand end round the silk, but this is not remarked, because he makes a great to do of drawing the knots hard, and—since the right hand decreases in length by thus enwrapping the rest—works up the slack to shorten the left end proportionably to the other.
The company is allowed to test the security of the knots.
On regaining the handkerchief, Mr. Hanky Panky covers the knots with the loose flap in the centre, and has one end held again.
The knot can be felt through the silk, but still, on seizing the loose end and the assistant letting go, Mr. Panky shakes the handkerchief out as one snaps a whip, and proceeds to find a rabbit or bottle of wine in the folds.
THE HANDKERCHIEF AND EGG TRICK.
This is a modification of the above.
An egg is passed round for free examination. A handkerchief is held up in the performer’s hands by any two of its corners, and flourished to and fro to prove its innocency. It is then spread out on the table, the egg laid in its centre, and the handkerchief taken by its four ends, so that the audience cannot doubt that the “hen-fruit” is really in the middle.
Fig. 33.
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.