Later Day Tricks
A. Roterberg
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The Balanced Eggs
First Method
A pretty effect during the performance of some trick in which eggs are used, is created by taking several of the eggs and after placing them on top of one another then balancing them in this fashion. The performer then takes one egg after the other down and shows that there was no connection of any kind between them.
The eggs that are used during this trick require some slight preparation, a small hole having been made in each egg, through which its contents have been extracted. The empty shells are then rinsed and placed aside for a day or two in order to allow them to become perfectly dry. A smooth lemonade straw is then inserted in one of the holes of each shell, being then pushed through and allowed to issue from the other hole. Where shell and straw meet, a little dab of white glue is put on and after the latter is dry, the protruding ends of the straw are very carefully cut off with a sharp knife. The performer has thus obtained a number of blown eggs, each of which contains a hidden tube.
After having produced these eggs in any manner he fancies, the performer takes the first egg and secretly introduces into the bottom hole a thin but stiff wire, the largest part of which is concealed in his sleeve. In placing the second egg on top of the first one, he continues to push up the wire, which after passing through the tube in the lower egg, enters the tube of the next one and thus keeps the latter balanced on the lower egg. In this manner the performer continues to place more eggs on, until a sufficiently high pyramid of them is reached, the wire being gradually pushed up. It will hardly be necessary to state that in performing the feat due care must be exercised in not allowing the wire to protrude too early from the upper hole of the topmost egg.
The eggs are then one after the other taken down, the wire being gradually withdrawn and allowed to recede within the sleeve, from where it is afterwards disposed of by dropping it on the servante.
While doing the trick, the conjurer pretends that it is a very difficult one, copying in his actions as nearly, as possible the manner of a real juggler.
Second Method
In this version of the trick, the wire in the sleeve is dispensed with, the magician building up the eggs on the very tip of his wand, which, as my reader has already surmised, is prepared for the purpose. It contains a wire of nearly the same length as the wand; this wire is secured to a short pin which travels freely back and forth on the inside of the wand, which is made on the very, same plan as the Money Catching Wand. A slit of nearly the entire length as the wand is cut or filed into the latter, allowing a small screw to be inserted from the outside of the wand into the plug. By pushing this screw back and forth in the slit, the wire fastened to the plug can thereby be caused to protrude from the top of the wand and also to recede within the latter at the performer's option. In the upper end of the wand, which had best be a metal one, japanned black, is drilled a small hole, allowing free passage of the wire. The rest of the trick needs no further explanation, the modus operandi being similar to the one in the preceding method.
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