Water Wizardry Part 7

The conjurer throws the silk handkerchief over the card and arranges it neatly, so that the card is about in the centre of the handkerchief.

Bringing his right hand over the top of the handkerchief the conjurer takes the card in that hand and holds it over the jug of water, while with his left hand he drapes the handkerchief round the outside of the jug, practically hiding it. Someone in the audience is asked to take the card from the conjurer (holding it, of course, with the handkerchief over it) and to drop it into the water at the word "Go!" When this is done the handkerchief naturally drops down and covers the jug. The conjurer picks up the jug with the left hand and whisking away the handkerchief with the right hand shows that the water has dissolved the card.

The conjurer then brings forward two slates, and in order to get them thoroughly clean wipes them with a small sponge which he dips into the jug of water. The slates are dried, placed together, wrapped in a sheet of newspaper and given into the possession of a member of the audience.

The audience are led to believe that the name of the card is to be written magically on the slates, but when the person holding them takes off the paper he finds to his surprise that the card is between the slates and, as a matter of fact, the card is the identical card that was chosen in the first place.

This effect is brought about by means of a few subtle--but quite easy--"moves" and the use of one little "fake." The jug of water is standing on the conjurer's table; placed just behind it is the large silk handkerchief folded in four, and behind the handkerchief is a piece of transparent celluloid of the exact size of the cards which are to be used; beside the piece of celluloid is the pack of cards.

Picking up the cards, the conjurer shuffles them with their faces towards the audience, thus showing--without directly calling attention to the fact--that the pack is an ordinary one. The conjurer advances to someone with the request that a card may be chosen.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

{shows card in hand, then covered by handkerchief slips card into sleeve with other hand} _Celluloid_

_CARD AS SHOWN_

_Celluloid_

_CONCEALING CARD_

Fig. 12]

"Please take any card you like," says the conjurer. "Perhaps you would like to take the pack in your hand and select a card at your leisure.

When you have made up your mind will you please put the card on the top of the pack. . . . Have you done that? You'll know the card again when you see it? Thank you. In order that everyone may remember the card I will show it to the audience; there is no harm in my knowing what it is."

The conjurer receives the pack back again, lifts off the top card, shows it to the audience, returns it to the pack and then, turning the pack over, drops it face upwards on the table so that it falls on the top of the piece of celluloid. If the cards spread a little when they fall, so much the better. The conjurer then exhibits the jug of water.

"A jug of water," he says. "If there were any trickery about this it would be a transparent fraud, wouldn't it? But there is no trickery about it; it's just the ordinary water that comes down from the clouds and is charged for at the ordinary rates." (He puts the jug on the table and picks up the handkerchief.) "A large silk handkerchief. Three hundred silkworms had to work overtime for a fortnight to make the silk for this handkerchief; it isn't one of those tiny little handkerchiefs."

(The conjurer shows both sides of the handkerchief and puts it down again.) "And now I am going to see if you all have a good memory. Do you remember what card was chosen and placed on the top of the pack? You do?

Well; let us see if you are right."

It will be remembered that the cards are face upwards on the table. The conjurer picks up the pack with his right hand (including with it the piece of celluloid), turns it over, and places it in his left hand; directly it is there the right hand is brought over the pack to square it up. The left thumb then pushes the piece of celluloid over the edge of the pack for about half an inch--the right little finger preventing it from going too far--and the left thumb then pushes the top card forward in the same way. Thus the piece of celluloid is now directly over the top card, and the two can be lifted off the pack together and exhibited as one card. The conjurer shows the card to the audience on his right and then places it in his left hand and shows it to the audience on his left. Great care must be taken to nip the piece of celluloid and the card closely together, and when the card is in the left hand the thumb should be behind it, the fingers in front and the tips of the thumb and fingers should point upwards.

The conjurer picks up the handkerchief with his right hand and throws it over the card, at the same time saying:

"I cover the card with the handkerchief. I do this because it is so much easier than covering the handkerchief with the card. I want to get the centre of the handkerchief just over the card."

Directly the card is hidden by the handkerchief the conjurer pushes up the piece of celluloid with his thumb, while with his fingers he slides the card down a little way towards his wrist. In order to arrange the handkerchief properly over the card the conjurer puts his right hand under the handkerchief and lifts it into position, so that the centre is over the card. While his right hand is under the handkerchief the conjurer takes the card from the left hand and slips it for a moment into the left sleeve, taking care to push it down, so that when his hand is afterwards removed the card is hidden. The conjurer then brings his right hand over the top of the handkerchief and, gripping the piece of celluloid through the handkerchief, asks someone to hold it over the jug of water; of course, that person naturally thinks that he is holding the card, and the fact that the conjurer's hands are empty is proof that the card must be under the handkerchief.

The next step in the trick is very simple. Having draped the handkerchief round the jug and asked the person holding what he believes to be the card to release "the card" at the word "Go!" the conjurer merely has to take the handkerchief away and hold up the jug; the celluloid sinks to the bottom and is therefore invisible. The a.s.sistant is thanked and he returns to his seat.

The conjurer continues his patter:

"For a time the card is dissolved in that water, but if you would care to wait a few hours you will see the water gradually evaporate, leaving a kind of impression of the card stamped upon the jug. If you want the trick done quickly you have to send a special message to the good fairy who arranges these things. You would like the trick done quickly? Very well, then I must write the message to the fairy on one of these slates and ask for an immediate reply."

The conjurer picks up two ordinary slates and holds them in his left hand. The palm of the hand should be facing the audience and the fingers slightly bent. The ends of the two slates are rested on the fingers and against the arm.

"When writing to fairies," says the conjurer, "you must always have a clean slate." He dips a little sponge into the jug of water and sponges over the slate which is facing the audience; the slate is turned over and the other side is washed.

The conjurer now s.h.i.+fts the position of the slates. With his right hand he grasps them near the ends which are resting on the left hand, and as he does this he inserts the first and second fingers of his right hand into his left sleeve and draws out the card, keeping it hidden behind the slates. Directly he has done this the conjurer takes hold of the slates with the left hand, holding them by their sides; his fingers keep the card behind the slates. He should turn to his right when taking the slates in the left hand. The next step is to slide out the under slate by taking it with the right hand, while the left fingers keep the card pressed against the slate which has been at the top. The slate which has been taken away with the right hand is now placed on the top of the other, both sides are cleaned, and the conjurer, taking a piece of chalk, writes on the slate facing the audience:

"Please hurry up."

This slate is now drawn away with the right hand and placed under the other, thus getting the card in between the two slates, which are then wrapped in a sheet of paper and given to a member of the audience. The conjurer picks up the jug of water for a moment and pretends to discover suddenly that he has spoiled the experiment.

"I quite forgot," he says, "when I was cleaning the slates that I was using some of this water. There's no telling what may happen now; you may find little bits of the card all over the slates when they are dry.

Would you mind having a look at them?"

The person holding the slates unwraps them and finds the card in between the two slates, and the conjurer finishes by suggesting that the fairy has saved the situation.

The only "move" in the trick which is not quite easy is that which the conjurer makes to get the card out of his sleeve and hidden behind the slates. A very little practice, for preference in front of a looking-gla.s.s, will enable the conjurer to get over this difficulty; he should bear in mind that what he is apparently doing is to lift the slates with the right hand and take them by the sides with the left hand. If those movements are practised until the conjurer can make them without having to stop to think about them he can then go on to practise making the same movements while, at the same time, he gets the card out of his sleeve and hides it behind the slates, keeping it there with the fingers of his left hand. This is quite easy, but for the benefit of beginners who may wish for a still more simple method of doing the trick I suggest the following.

The card is "forced"; that is to say, the conjurer apparently allows the person who is taking the card to have a free choice, but he really makes sure that the person takes one particular card. An expert card conjurer can "force" one particular card from an ordinary pack, but to do this is not easy, and even an expert cannot be absolutely certain of forcing the card which he wishes to use in a trick. Therefore, since the beginner is out to make the trick as simple and sure as possible he should use a "forcing pack," which consists of one card repeated, say, forty times; a few other indifferent cards are placed on the top and below the forty.

The conjurer who is going to use a "forcing pack" should do some other card trick with an ordinary pack and then exchange it for the "forcing pack"; of course, the backs of the two packs must match. The conjurer must also take care to hold the cards down when he is having one selected, so that no one may get a glimpse under the cards.

The card is taken and placed on the top of the pack as in the first method, and the card is got rid of by being pushed down the left sleeve, but the procedure afterwards is greatly simplified.

One of the two slates used is a "flap" slate; that is to say, a loose piece of cardboard painted to resemble a slate is laid inside it. The cardboard is painted on both sides, and, therefore, when the ordinary slate is placed on the top of the flap slate and both are turned over together the "flap" falls into the ordinary slate.

The working of this part of the trick will now be obvious. A card similar to the one which has been forced is placed under the flap of one of the slates. When the conjurer picks up this slate he must be careful to hold the flap firmly with his thumb to prevent it from falling away.

He lightly sponges both sides of the slate (in reality one side of the flap and one side of the slate); he then cleans the ordinary slate in the same way and places it on the top of the flap. He cannot give the slates to a member of the audience to hold, and, therefore, after he has turned them over, to get the flap to fall, the conjurer merely places a broad elastic band on them and stands them up for a moment against a candlestick or some piece of apparatus on the table after he has written the message to the fairy.

By using a flap slate in this way the conjurer can produce a message on one of the slates in addition to producing the card. The message is written on one of the slates and is then covered with the flap; when the flap falls the message and the card are both disclosed. Since the conjurer apparently cleans all four sides of the two slates and leaves them slightly damp he ought really to dampen the underside of the flap and the side of the slate concealed by the flap before he begins the trick; otherwise, someone with a very alert mind may point out at the conclusion of the trick that although the conjurer wiped all four sides of the slates with a damp sponge, two of them (really the underside of the flap and the side of the slate which was concealed by the flap in the first instance) are not quite dry. It is always as well to be prepared for interruptions of that kind.

CHAPTER VIII

MISCELLANEOUS WATER TRICKS

The average beginner usually despises a very easy trick, simply because it is easy. Maybe it is for that reason that one seldom hears of a young amateur including the "Wine and Water" trick in his repertoire. I once heard a young amateur state his objection to the trick.

"Oh, it's so obviously just a chemical experiment," he said.

He was wrong. If the trick is presented properly it will not be "just a chemical experiment" but a very entertaining little bit of magic--simple in its effect, and very short. The trick used to be in the repertoire of Mr. David Devant, and other notable magicians have performed it in public.

There are many ways of presenting the trick, but I do not think that anyone has ever beaten Mr. Devant's method, which I give now with his permission. The effect is so clear that the youngest child in the audience can follow it.

Standing in a row on a tray on the table are four tumblers and a small gla.s.s jug, with water in it. The conjurer picks up the jug in one hand, a gla.s.s in another, pours out a little water and returns it to the jug.

Then he puts the gla.s.s down and pours a little water into each gla.s.s; the gla.s.ses should be about half full. The audience are--or should be--surprised to see that although the liquid in the first and third gla.s.ses is undoubtedly water, the second and fourth gla.s.ses contain wine, or ink, or stout, or whatever the conjurer is pleased to call it; it is a black fluid.

The conjurer puts the jug down and, taking up the first and second gla.s.ses, mixes the contents together, with the result that he gets one gla.s.s full of "wine"; he pours this into the jug and all the water in the jug is immediately turned into wine. The conjurer then mixes the contents of the third and fourth gla.s.ses together, and he gets a gla.s.s of clear water. Pouring this into the jug he causes all the "wine" in it to change at once into clear water. Thus, at the finish of the trick the conjurer returns to the point at which he started--with a jug of water and four empty gla.s.ses.

The whole secret is in the "doctoring" of the four gla.s.ses. The preparations must be made carefully, and when presenting it in a strange place it is always necessary to try it out beforehand, because the quant.i.ties of the chemicals used which are sufficient to work the trick in one district may be quite wrong for the water of another district.

The gla.s.ses are prepared in this way. The first contains a teaspoonful of a saturated solution of tannin; the second and fourth gla.s.ses contain a few drops of a saturated solution of perchloride of iron, known to some chemists as "steel drops"; the third gla.s.s contains a few drops of a saturated solution of oxalic acid.

The object of pouring water into the first gla.s.s and tipping it back into the jug is to mix the tannin with the water in the jug. Directly he has done this the conjurer must be brisk in his movements, because after the tannin has been put in the water soon becomes slightly cloudy.