A Town "Guyed."
By Sydney Carton, M.I.M.C.

This little experiment proves a pleasant opening item where conditions will not permit of fine work which may need elbow room and much preparation.

It is intended to precede a slate or blackboard effect.

The conjurer's table is set with the prettiest chocolate box to be found. The size of this is dependent solely upon the size of the cards or views which are utilised in the effect. To complete the conquest of the audience the box is tied with a jazz ribbon, the long ends of which hang down in front of the table.

The performer enters with a pair of property field glasses slung around his neck, and a number of large size photographs or views of London (or his own town) and a slate under his arm. If a blackboard is used in place of the slate that should be further to his left from table and have its back to the audience. A small piece of chalk is also necessary. The only preparation needed is for the six or eight (ten at most) views which figure as principals in the piece, to be tied in a known order, and face out, to the bottom of the chocolate box, and for the box to stand on its edge with top toward the audience.

It follows from the presentation that the bottom of the chocolate box is slightly larger, all round, than the views, and the tying of the ribbon needs care in order that at a certain stage in the trick a pull with the right hand draws it gently clear, allowing the additional views to fall on top of those already shown to the audience.

Presentation--

"Ladies and gentlemen, as every prominent man has said at some time during his career, (exhibit the views casually) 'My views are well known to you all.' Allow me to present my own guide to London--or how to lose your way in five minutes. (Present the cards to a willing assistant.) Will you just mix them a bit--the views, I mean, sir. These are just illustrations from the book of 'Judges.' Thank you, sir; (performer returns to stage) have you recognised any of them? Temple Bar, the home of Driped the Traveller; the Home and Colonial, Peck. ham, where your weights are longer and your burdens lighter. 'Oxton--the Bovril Estate, with the aitch silent as in the bone,--they are all there.

"Whatever shortcomings I may have I am not like the disappointing lover who had a past, a future, but no (indicate box) present. (Pick up box and shake it.) I thought it was Fuller.

"What I propose to do (hold cards, faces away from audience, in left hand, pick up box with right hand, placing the box on lop of the cards and bringing all into register with the fingers) is to prove the power of the Wizard's Vision. (Place box and views flat on table and withdraw ribbon.) If we place the cards face downwards in this box and replace the lid, normal vision will not be able to reveal the order in which the cards are now (remove lid with right hand and box with left hand and on word 'now' point with latter towards cards on table) but given the possession of such admirable aids to vision as these glasses, it is a matter of ease. (Place cards into box and replace lid.) Into the box go the cards, on with the motley, and now for the' magic. As Goethe sagely remarked, 'Two Bocks make one hic' --but here we have only one box--which is singular. Perhaps you will be so good as to 'Carry the Board' --only cardboard in this case--sir, and I will get my witching eyes to work."

Performer now goes through business of looking through the field glasses, to the accompaniment of interjections, and probably suggestions from the audience. He will also write upon the slate or blackboard, with the chalk, a correct list of the first six or eight cards, as he' knows them to be.

"Everything looks very foggy--ah, that's better. Take your thumb away, sir, it blocks the view. It's coming through--I get an impression of a building; two steeples. That must be Cardinal Wolsey's place. Where they make the cardinals, I should ,say. The second one--how dark it is. Just an empty space, lit by gas--Houses of Parliament. In the front of the next one I see a stoney, a stoney-it's a stone with writing on it; wait a bit, I have it, What we have we'll hold--Admiralty or the Stock Exchange. And the next is, yes the next is masts and spars--mostly spars--National Sporting Club. Now for another, and don't wobble, sir, it makes everything look like a monument to St. Vitus; good, here it comes. It is that place Nelson has turned his back upon, where they run the Grand National. Anyway it says 'Way in.'

"Now, sir, apart from the fun I have written here the names of several of the cards in the box, in the order you will find them. May I trouble you to take off the lid and look at the first card? Thank you. I believe you will find it to be Westminster Abbey. Right! And the next, close handy, the Houses of Parliament, another winner? The third, you will find to be neither the Admiralty nor the Stock Exchange but Wandsworth Gail. Good, I recognised it at once. Fourth, the spars are really those of the London Docks, or one of them. Pardon, I'm wrong? What is the picture then--the Old Bailey? Well that is one of the London Docks, isn't it? Lastly, although I could go much further, the National Gallery. Right again, and many thanks for your kindly help."