A Sleight with a Cigarette
(and a good laugh)
This is an entirely impromptu thing and can be used anywhere and any place, and is especially effective at a dinner table or cafe or parlor.... using a borrowed cigarette. BUT.... the switch itself can be used in ANY trick where a cigarette is substituted for another one.
In this instance you borrow a cigarette from someone, and without apparently making any moves whatsoever, you take the cigarette, and expressing great surprise, you pull out the cigarette and it stretches way out like rubber, after doing this three or four times, you pass the cigarette back again and needless to say, it is all right, and the spectators, besides being compelled to laugh at a ludicrous bit of by-play with someone else's cigarette, are also completely fooled.
The speed with which you work this sleight or switch, will determine the laughs or mystery you get out of the move.
First of all have the RUBBER CIGARETTE thumb palmed in the right hand (held in crotch of thumb between thumb and first finger).... Ask to borrow a cigarette and when one is offered, you take it with your left hand and hold it upright between your fingers (SEE ILL. NO. 1)....Now bring your right hand over to left hand, as in FIGURE 2.... forming a "V" with the two cigarettes.... your left hand now lowers the 2 cigarettes holding them still in a "V", and as soon as the cigarette leaves the right hand, the left hand tips to the right so that the tip of the real cigarette goes into the right hand thumb crotch, where it is palmed and left hand moves immediately away with rubber cigarette, left hand tips upside down so the cigarette is pointing down toward the right fingers which grasp it, stroke it a few times, and then PULLS IT WAY DOWN, STRETCHING IT TO FULL LENGTH, and then back again.... when you do this rapidly three or four times, it is very funny.... after you finish, turn left hand so cigarette is now pointing upward again, bring right hand over and form the "V" again and then work the same moves as explained above so that the real cigarette is in the left hand at finish. You then pass it back to the spectator, and reaching in your pocket for your handkerchief, you leave the cigarette, and bring out hank, and wipe off your hands.... IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GET RUBBER CIGARETTES, I'LL GLADLY SEND YOU A COUPLE OF THEM FOR NOTHING.