Later Day Tricks
A. Roterberg
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The Four Soup Plates And Handkerchiefs
AN excellent trick, which although not entirely new, still is very little known, is the following. On each of two side tables the performer has two plates. On one of them he places a silk handkerchief and then turns the second plate upside down upon it. The empty plate on the opposite right table is then covered in a similar manner with the remaining plate. A change is now commanded to take place and upon lifting off the upper plate on the left table, the handkerchief is seen to have vanished, both plates being empty, while upon taking apart the remaining plates, the missing handkerchief is, found in the lower one.
By means of two black threads, adroitly manipulated by the performer's assistant, this charming effect is produced. I will first explain the vanishing of one of the handkerchief of which two are employed as my reader will have surmised. On the servante of the left table lies a thread, to the end of which is fastened a black pin bent into the shape of a hook, the thread is then led from here to the inside of the bottom of the table, where a hole is bored through which the thread passes to the floor. A staple is driven in the latter, through Which the thread is passed and then led to the assistant behind the screen or wing.
While exhibiting the handkerchief, the performer picks up the black pin and secretly hooks it into the center of the handkerchief, which he now places on the lower soup plate, and taking the second plate, inverts it on the first one. While the two plates are still about half an inch apart from each other, the assistant gives a quick pull to the thread, by which process the handkerchief is drawn out from between the two plates with lightning like rapidity and flies into the body of the table. This disappearance is so quick and indiscernible, that the author in performing the trick even made so bold as to allow a spectator to stand in front of the table and to place the second plate on the lower one, without him detecting the modus operandi.
The appearance of the other handkerchief between the plates on the right table is worked on a somewhat similar principle. From where the assistant is stationed, is led along the floor another thread, which passes through a staple in the floor, through the bottom and top of the table and then through a small hole drilled through the center of the bottom of the lower soup plate. To this end of the thread is fastened the handkerchief by its center, the thread being drawn out sufficiently to allow of placing the handkerchief on the servante of the table. In covering the lower plate, a quick pull on the thread by the assistant, causes the handkerchief to be drawn from the servante between the two plates. As in the vanishing of the handkerchief, the assistant does not manipulate the thread until the two plates are nearly together.
As the handkerchief, which has appeared by this means, cannot be removed from the plate, unless the performer breaks or cuts the thread, it will be as well to use a double thread, passed through the handkerchief and consisting of one thread only, being free from knots. Both ends of this thread are in possession of the assistant, who after pulling the handkerchief between the plates, simply drops one of the ends of the thread and draws in the thread by means of pulling on the other end. By this process the thread is pulled entirely out of the handkerchief.
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