Trick

“ We have thought upon a device to get thee out by a trick.
By a trick! pox o' your trick, an' it be so long a playing.
[Pg 55] And so rest comforted, be merry, and expect it suddenly!
Be merry! hang merry, draw and quarter merry;
I'll be mad. Is't not strange that a man should lie-in a whole month for a woman? Well, we shall see how sudden our brothers will be in their promise. I must expect still a trick: I shall not be long a prisoner. How now, what news?
Enter Keeper.
Keeper. Bad news, my lord; I am discharged of you.
Jun. Slave! call'st thou that bad news? I thank you, brothers. ”

“ As I watched his deft white fingers and the eager expression on his face, while he made his passes, rattling off a patter with each new trick, I could not help thinking of the Great Conjuring Trick, involving tremendous issues, in which he was himself engaged.
"And now," he said, after he had amused us with his clever performances for about a quarter of an hour, "I mean to give you my last and, I hope, my most remarkable trick.
"Will someone in the room write a sentence—any sentence will do? ”

“ The best trick loses half its effect on repetition, but besides this, the audience know precisely what is coming, and have all their faculties directed to find out at what point you cheated their eyes on the first occasion. It is sometimes hard to resist an encore, but a little tact will get you out of the difficulty, especially if you have studied, as every conjuror should4 do, the variation and combination of tricks. ”

“ But once he does a thing a few times, and then won't do it, then you must whip him.”
“What about trick horses?”
“A trick horse rolls a barrel, or lies down and goes to bed with the clown, or fires a pistol—does any trick like that. Some small circuses make the same horses do both trick and ring work, but it isn't a good line. A horse is all the better to have only one line of business—same as a man.”
“How do you teach them tricks?”
“Oh, it takes a long time and a lot of hard work and great patience. Even to make a horse lie down when he's ordered takes a couple of months sometimes. ”

“ Arrange your magical novelties in groups, e. g.: two or three coin tricks, three or four handkerchief tricks, etc., and not a coin trick, then an illusion with a handkerchief, followed by another feat with a coin. Lead up to the best trick in each group with several smaller feats of a more or less similar nature. ”

“ In the 18th Trick, the glass of wine becoming solid might be used as a good finish to any trick where some friend has assisted in its exhibition.
You may often raise a good-humored laugh by appearing to swallow any object which you have used in a trick—as an orange, ball, egg, or dime—and afterwards bringing it out from your sleeve; or, by the use of Pass 1, to drive a coin up one sleeve, round the back of your neck, and down the other sleeve, into your right hand. ”

“ The trick is performed as follows:—You begin by announcing that you require the assistance of some gentleman who never believes anything that he is told. The audience generally take this as a joke,94 but for the purpose of this trick it is really rather an advantage to have the assistance of a person who will take nothing for granted, and will be satisfied with nothing short of ocular demonstration of any fact which you desire him to concede. ”

“ I once paid a great deal of attention to card-sharping tricks and{226} as I acquired them, either of myself or from practised gamblers, I demonstrated them to the young criminalists. For a long time I refused to believe what an old Greek told me: “The more foolish and obvious a trick is, the more certain it is; people never see anything.” ”

“ Unless the trick is thoroughly understood, for some it will turn one way, for others the opposite way, while for others it will not revolve at all. One person whom I now recall became red in the face by shouting skidoo and skidee at it, but the thing would not move at all, and he finally, from vexation, threw the trick into the fire and a new one had to be made. ”

“ The trick is in truth a mere affair of dexterity; the performer having acquired by long practise the power of placing the pea under any thimble he pleases. What I propose to show you is a similar effect, but more surprising, because, as you will see, there is no room for dexterity, or indeed any form of trickery; so that I have to depend entirely upon my magic power. I shall use a shilling, as being more easily seen than a pea, and three cards from this pack to represent the thimbles. ”

“ The patter for a given trick, once composed, and tested by a few performances in public, may thenceforth, so far as the professional is concerned, [202] be left to take care of itself. It should automatically improve with each of its earlier repetitions as good wine improves in bottle. Faults will correct themselves, and being made perfect by practice, the performer will thenceforth be able to “speak his piece” without effort, and devote his whole energies to the actual working of the trick. ”

“ This, of course, he will do; and the trick may very well end here, with the satisfaction on your part that you have kept your secret, and that, even when removed from the sphere of your adverse influence, your pupils will fail in performing the trick, making the attempt, as they naturally will, with the full piquet pack. But it is just possible that a contretemps may arise, for which it will be well to be prepared. Some one of the audience, more acute than the generality, may suggest again counting the cards, to see if all are there when the trick succeeds. ”

“ The reader will have seen that, in some of the tricks explained in previous papers, there is simply some one definite object to be carried out. For instance, in the two tricks which concluded the last paper, the performer simply undertakes to throw the spools off the tape, or to restore a tape which has been cut. He sets about this, accomplishes it, and the trick is over. This is all very well as far as it goes. If the trick is really a good one, it is like a host furnishing his guests with a solid joint to satisfy their appetite ”

“ It is impossible for the hand to move quicker than the eye can follow, as can be proved by experiment. The deception really lies in the method of working the trick, and in the ability of the performer in misdirection, as will be seen from a perusal of the following pages.
A little well-arranged talk as an introductory to an entertainment will be found to put you on good terms with your audience. ”

“ If, before a trick be turned, a player discover that he has not followed suit, he may recall his card; but the card played in error can be called when the suit is played. Before a trick is turned, the player who made it may see the preceding trick. ”

“ To an acute mind, even such a slight hint as this will suggest enough to destroy half the effect of any subsequent trick in which a similar process of disappearance or exchange is employed, and even in the case of less intelligent spectators it will tend to diminish the prestige of the performer, by showing by what shallow artifices an illusion may be produced. ”

“ Any one who wishes to play a trick or show off a puzzle should test it privately, before attempting to show it before company, for often, owing to some slight error, the trick may at first prove a failure, whereas a little practice will soon make one perfect. ”

“ The difficulty is increased a hundredfold when what we would tell partakes of the wonderful. Who can truthfully describe a juggler's trick? Who would hesitate to affirm that a watch, which never left the eyesight for an instant, was broken by the juggler on an anvil ”

“ We know the technique of the trick better than the effect it produces, just as it is hard for a conjuror to realise the sensations of the old gentleman in the audience who finds a bowl of goldfish in his waistcoat pocket. ”

“ I shall end up this interesting and instructive article with a rather more difficult illusion. For the tricks I have already explained it was sufficient that the amateur prestidigitator (I shall only say this once more) should know how it was done; for my last trick he will also require a certain aptitude for legerdemain in order to do it. But a week's quiet practice at home will give him all the skill that is necessary.
THE MYSTERIOUS PUDDING is one of the oldest and most popular illusions. You begin by borrowing a gold watch from one of your audience. ”

“ From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table. ”

“ We followed you to Lake George—for I had "forced a card," after my habitual plan, by inducing you to invite us, with the fixed intention of playing a particular trick upon you. It formed no part of our original game to steal your dispatch-box; that I consider a simple and elementary trick unworthy the skill of a practised operator. We persisted in the preparations for our coup, till you pulled my hair out. ”

“ Bearing this in mind, describe what you propose to do as an “effect,” a “marvel,” an “experiment,” or a “phenomenon”; never by any chance as a “trick.”
It may be objected that I have myself repeatedly used the obnoxious word in the course of the foregoing pages, but that is another matter. This book is written by a conjurer for conjurers: and as between ourselves we are forced to admit, painful though it be to do so, that our greatest miracles are only tricks. But we need not tell the public so. Logically-minded, persons know it well enough, if they are allowed to think about the matter. ”

“ There has been also a confusion, which has influenced the meaning and form of “trick,” with the Dutch trekken, to pull, draw, cf. the South African Dutch trek, a journey, migration, properly the action of drawing a vehicle or travelling by ox-wagon. “Trick” or “tricking” is thus used, in heraldry, as the technical term for the drawing of a coat of arms in monochrome, giving the tinctures by the conventions of vertical, horizontal or diagonal lines, &c. ”

“ In brief, the effect of a trick depends more upon the receptive attitude of the spectators than upon what is really [123] done. "Conjuring," Mr. Triplett observes, "is thus seen to be a kind of game of preperception wherein the performer so plays upon the psychical processes of his audience that the issues are as he desires." ”

“ Passing to the third function of patter, the misdirection of attention in the course of a trick, we will assume that you have made a start in the right direction at the outset, by suggesting some fanciful explanation of the effect you intend to produce, so that your audience, starting from wrong premises, do not know the points at which their too close observation would be inconvenient. The best way of diverting their attention at one of these critical points is obviously to attract it to some other direction. ”

“ Most amateurs in the art of magic, and also only too many professional performers, place their reliance mainly upon the trick itself—the deceptive manipulation or the novel apparatus—and are satisfied to get out of it what they can. ”

“ While the one is concerned with the explanation and description of the actual marvels accomplished, the other must consider also what is reported and what is believed to have been accomplished. The mechanism of a trick, whether brought forward as evidence of spiritualism or not, when clearly exhibited, explains the trick; a loose board under the roof, or the reflection from a lustrous surface, may at once reveal how mysterious noises and lights were really produced. ”

“ VIII. Carrying Fire in the Hands.—In performing this extremely simple trick, the audience must not be informed of what it is your intention to do, but it should be done when there is any delay in your other tricks, or some hitch occurs in getting anything you require, and which happens not to be at hand. For filling up a gap in a performance, it will be found extremely useful. In giving an entertainment of magic, always have on your table two burning candles; they are both useful and ornamental, and serve to dispel any idea of the spectators that you cannot perform your tricks in a full light. ”

“ But I am able to inform you that this is merely a simple magic trick which the robber stole from Glinda the Good, and by good fortune I know how to destroy these flames as well as how to produce them. Will some one of you kindly give me a match? ”

“ We'd begin breakfast by playing one hand after the manner of whist. Each man would keep his tricks, and when the waffles were served he would receive those, and those only, represented by the cards in the tricks he had taken. If you took a trick with the king of diamonds in it, you'd get the waffle with the king of diamonds on it, and so on. Every man would be clearly entitled through his skill in the game to the waffles that he ate. ”

“ Well, there are no conjurors more subtle in taking us in at every available opportunity with or without reason, often for the sole pleasure of playing tricks on us. And they play these tricks with incredible simplicity, astonishing audacity, unparalleled ingenuity. They play tricks from morning till night, and they all do it—the most virtuous, the most upright, the most sensible of them. ”

“ Remember how many of each suit are out, and what is the best card left in each hand. Never force your partner if you are weak in trumps, unless you have a renounce, or want the odd trick. When playing for the odd trick, be cautious of trumping out, especially if your partner be likely to trump a suit. Make all the tricks you can early, and avoid finessing. If you take a trick, and have a sequence, win it with the lowest.
There are None So Wicked as Represented.
76. Laws of Whist
as accepted at the best Clubs. ”

“ It need scarcely be said that the nature of the trick, if trick it is (the suspension of the rope by some unknown power, the ascent of the boy into the clouds, the tumbling down to earth of the separate members, and, finally the joining together of these into a live form again) , would forbid any such performance taking place in reality—except on the stage, e.g., when appropriate apparatus can be arranged to perform this feat—an illusion of this sort being mentioned in Mahatma, Vol. ”