The Cigarette and Dollar Bill Again

Once more we bring this old-timer forth but after you read this see if you can beat it for simpleness and effect.

A spectator opens a new pack after examining and a cigarette is removed and marked and placed in performer's mouth. A bill is borrowed and spectator writes down number and INITIALS BILL BEFORE performer ever touches it. Bill is destroyed in most open manner, the cigarette being lighted just before this event. Cigarette IF; now identified by mark and while still burning is broken open and bill removed. When handed back, the owner is asked to identify bill by marks and number.

Take a new pack of Camel cigarettes and open from the bottom with safety razor blade. Remove one cigarette and after removing enough tobacco insert a rolled dollar bill, not a new one or an old one, but half way between. Put cigarette back into package, remembering which it is from top, and seat up pack with a little glue. Make a neat job of it as it will stand a look but not much, as they always look at seal and top. Have in your pocket a letter size envelope with slit along center of face and inside a piece of paper size of folded bill. A candle is setting on your table at your right. Several matches in left trouser pocket.

(Since Annemann wrote his description most cigarette packages have been given an added cellophane wrapper. In order to prepare the "unopened" package as described above, it first is necessary to remove the cellophane. It will be found quite simple, with most brands, to open the cellophane wrapper at the top and slide it off the paper packet. After the pack has been prepared the cellophane can be slid back on, top refolded and stuck in place, so that the pack seems to be just as it come from the factory.)

Go into audience and hand pack out with request for it to be opened, you starting it at the right side as they are usually opened only a little. Watch closely and have him hand you a cigarette, you can tell if it is the right one and if not just hand it to someone to show the cigarettes are ordinary and ask for another. You may have to do this three or four times but not more until you get the right one, but the audience takes it for a joke and you are pattering about being generous, etc., and when you get loaded one say you'll have to quit because you have already exceeded your expense account. Hold cigarette between fingers and have person mark it and place in your mouth.

Now borrow the dollar bill after it has been noted and marked and walk back to platform with bill in air and cigarette in mouth. Pick up a match and light it (here you get a laugh) but light cigarette and candle. Fold bill several times and taking envelope with flap to front openly insert bill but it comes out slit into left fingers which are behind envelope. Right hand folds down flap and holds it in front of candle and then into flame and here is the perfect misdirection as they all look to see the bill and your left hand with bill casually goes into left trouser pocket as you watch envelope burn. After ashes are scattered go into audience, still puffing cigarette, and have it identified by marks. Step back or onto runway and break cigarette and unroll bill.

Now is the subtle move which I thank my good friend John Sardo of Elmira, N. Y., for. Nine times out of ten the audience will begin to applaud when you unroll the bill and you bow and ask them if it is not a very nice experiment, at same time pocketing bill and starting towards stage. This gets a good laugh and of course you act surprised, and then remember about the borrowed bill, going back into audience and returning it, and having the gentlemen identify it, but of course when you put bill in left trouser pocket and then withdraw it you exchanged it for We original and there you are!