The Napkin Ashes
By Joe Rukus

TEAR a paper napkin to bits, set it afire and let it burn to ashes on a plate. Take the plate and pour the ashes on the palm of your outstretched left hand. Place a bottomless glass, mouth side downwards over the ashes, as in Figure 1. Now secretly palm a duplicate, balled-up napkin, which has been hidden behind a metal tube on your table, in your right palm. Pick up the tube with the right fingertips at the top and put it over the inverted glass in your left hand. Release the palmed napkin which falls through the bottomless glass into your palm as you cover the glass. Place your right hand over the upper end of the cylinder and turn the works upside down.

Lift off the tube. There in the glass is the restored napkin. Tilt it out in your left hand, put down the glass and hold it out between your hands for display.