Water Wizardry Part 6

"Perhaps I ought to have explained at the beginning that this method of cooking rice is rather slow; if the rice is at all aged and tough it may take hours and hours--or even longer--to cook itself in a proper manner; of course, this rice is strictly proper--highly refined. It can be used for puddings, cakes, poultices, dog-biscuits and bill-stickers'

paste; it can also be used for waterproofing boots, and it is invaluable for invalids. I once induced an invalid friend of mine to try some of my patent rice pudding. The invalid got better at once--afraid of having to face a second dose. It's dangerous stuff--rice pudding. Many a happy home has been nearly wrecked--all through a cold, heavy, stodgy, underdone, beastly rice pudding. Ladies, let it be a warning to you. . . . I beg your pardon--I've been talking so much that I've been forgetting my own cooking. (_Lift bowl and pour water from one bowl to the other._) I'm very sorry. Really I must apologise. All the rice has been cooked away--perhaps it's as well, because n.o.body really likes rice pudding."

CHAPTER VI

THE INDIAN SANDS

In its simplest form this trick consists in putting some silver sand into a bowl of water and taking it out--perfectly dry. But the trick in that form is hardly worth doing and certainly not worth the trouble involved in its preparation.

An important additional effect is produced by using sands of three colours--red, white, and blue. The white sand is not really white, but the natural colour of the sand. In this case, not only does the conjurer take out the sand perfectly dry, but he takes out the sand of the colour named by the audience.

This is a trick which depends largely for its effect upon the showmanship of the performer, for unless the audience are thoroughly convinced that the bowl of water is what the conjurer says it is and nothing more--an ordinary bowl nearly filled with ordinary water--and unless the audience are further convinced of the fact that the sands of different colours are poured into the bowl and are thoroughly stirred up into the water they will not be properly surprised when the conjurer comes to the climax of the trick.

Therefore, the conjurer should lead off by giving the bowl out for examination. The bowl can be either of gla.s.s, metal, or china. The trick is most effective, I think, when a gla.s.s bowl is used; it should be a large flat bowl.

The different sands should be placed in bags, the red sand being in a red bag, and so on.

If the conjurer uses a gla.s.s bowl he should have the water in a large gla.s.s jug. He leads off by holding up the bowl for inspection; then he gives it out for examination. If he is performing in a room he should have a box or some kind of stand on the table, so that everyone can see the bowl during the whole of the performance.

Having received the bowl back again the conjurer pours in the water, and he should take note beforehand of the actual quant.i.ty required. If there is too much water some of it may get splashed over the brim during the performance of the trick, and if there is too little the trick is not sufficiently effective; besides, with a little water the trick is more difficult.

The conjurer then picks up the red bag and pours out the sand, a little at a time, on to his other hand; he should take care to let the audience see that he has nothing concealed in his hand at the beginning of the trick, and in pouring out the sand he should work slowly so that the audience see that he pours out nothing else but sand. While he is doing this he should hold his hand over the bowl, because some of the sand will drop off his hand into the water. There will naturally be quite a little mound of sand on his hand when the bag is empty. He then tips the sand into the bowl and stirs it slightly. The dye will colour the water.

He proceeds to empty the other two bags in the same way, taking great care to let the audience see that the bags contain nothing but sand and that he places nothing else in the water. At the end of these proceedings the water will be thoroughly coloured.

The conjurer, having turned up his sleeves, dips his right hand into the water, and stirs it up. Then, displaying his empty hand to the audience, he dips it into the water and takes out a handful of the wet sands and holds it up so that the audience can see it. He returns the "mud" to the bowl and washes off any sand from his hands.

Once more he dips his hand into the bowl and takes it out closed.

Picking up a gla.s.s goblet with his other hand, he holds it under his right hand from which dry red sand slowly trickles. When the hand is empty he opens it, shows it to the audience, and puts the goblet down.

Then he washes his hands in the bowl, and repeats the performance with the white sand and the blue, so that at the end of the trick the audience can see the sands in the three goblets. At the conclusion of the trick he can pour all the water with the sand "mud" into another vessel and thus show once more that the bowl is not prepared in any way for the trick.

This splendid effect is brought about by very simple means. Most conjurers hold the opinion that the best tricks are simple; this one is both simple and easy.

The princ.i.p.al secret consists in the preparation of small quant.i.ties of the different sands. First of all a quant.i.ty of sand is dyed red and a similar quant.i.ty is dyed blue, and both are left to dry. While they are drying the conjurer can prepare the white sand.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

{bag of loose sand, with compressed sand of different colours in different shapes} Loose sand

Faked sand

_METHOD OF LOADING BAGS OF SAND WITH SAND BLOCKS._

_KEY SHAPES FOR FINDING COLOURS BY TOUCH._

Fig. 11]

Place a small quant.i.ty in an old frying-pan and put it over the fire until it is thoroughly hot. Then drop in a small piece of tallow candle.

When the grease melts stir it well into the sand, so that every grain is covered. Then take the sand off the fire and press it down into little moulds.

As sands of three different colours are to be used in the trick it follows that the prepared sands must be put in moulds of three different shapes, because the conjurer merely has to feel in the water for the particular blocks of sand that he requires at each dip. The white sand can be put into little round, flat moulds, about as large as four halfpennies stuck together. When these little round blocks of prepared sand are cool they will be perfectly hard and waterproof.

The red sand can be placed in small square moulds and the blue sand in oval or round moulds; the shapes are immaterial so long as the conjurer remembers them.

The bags can be of paper. To prepare for the trick, turn one of the bags upside down and push the bottom of it inwards. Then place two or three of the blocks of sand of the right colour in the cavity at the bottom of the bag. Then turn the bag over and fill it with ordinary sand of the same colour.

Prepare the other two bags in the same way. In picking up each bag from the table, when you are going to do the trick, begin by lifting it about an inch from the table with the left hand; then grasp it round the middle with the right hand and hold the little finger under the bottom of the bag to prevent the blocks of sand from falling away. The paper of which the bags are made should be fairly stiff.

When all the sand from one of the bags has been poured out on to the hand--naturally a good deal of it will fall into the bowl--the conjurer turns his hand over and lets the sand drop into the bowl; at the same time he merely has to take his right little finger away from the bottom of the bag and the blocks fall into the water. They drop behind the falling sand, and being of the same colour they are not noticed by the audience.

If the conjurer does not care for this method of getting the prepared blocks into the water he can have larger bags and have the prepared blocks in them with the sand. In that case he dips his hand into a bag, takes out a handful of sand, and lets it trickle back into the bag. He does this once or twice; then he takes out a handful of sand and lets it fall into the water, taking care to let the audience see that he puts in nothing but sand. He repeats the action. Then, in taking another handful of sand, he gets two or three of the blocks with it, lets some of the sand fall into the water, brings his hand down close to the water, releases the "blocks," brings his hand up again and releases the rest of the sand from it. He can continue in this way until the bag is empty.

If the performer is on a stage there is very little likelihood of the audience seeing the blocks even if they are dropped from a height with the sand, but in a room, with the audience close to the table, it is as well to take every precaution against the discovery of the secret.

As for the rest of the trick, the effect is produced entirely by showmanship. In the hands of a capable performer the trick will cause a sensation, but if it is presented in a slipshod careless way, so that the audience are not thoroughly convinced at each stage of the trick that there has been "no deception," then the trick will go for nothing.

For example, if the conjurer neglects to take out a handful of the wet sand and show it to the audience, he misses a point. Of course, all that the conjurer really has to do is to feel in the bowl for the particular blocks of sand he requires. It is as well to have one or two more blocks than are actually necessary. When the conjurer has taken out a handful of the blocks he requires he merely has to crush them in his hand and they fall in a shower of dry sand.

A hint to the drawing-room performer. After the performance see that the water is poured away at once; otherwise, if some of the younger and more inquisitive members of your audience come round behind your screen at the close of the performance they will be sure to want to know how this trick was done, and if they get a glimpse of the water they may possibly notice grease floating on the surface!

Various other methods have been invented for keeping certain portions of sand dry when other sand of similar colour is placed in water. Some conjurers have done the sand up in little packets of grease-proof paper.

I have also heard of tiny air balloons being filled with sand. The great drawback of any of these other methods is that when the conjurer is letting the dry sand trickle away from his hand into the goblet he cannot immediately let the audience see that he has nothing concealed in his hand. He has to go at once to the bowl for the next handful and leave the "fake," whatever it may be, in the bottom of the bowl. By using the method I have described the conjurer gets the most convincing effect, and if he prepares a large quant.i.ty of the different blocks of sand at the same time the trick is really not troublesome. The exact quant.i.ty of tallow required must be determined by experiment; it will depend, of course, on the amount of sand which is being prepared.

The object of using goblets for the display of the dry sands is to enable the members of the audience in the front rows of seats to see the sands. When one is performing to an audience composed chiefly of children the first two or three rows of seats are usually occupied by very small children, and from their positions they cannot see the top of the table. Raise the object which you are going to place on the table and you bring it within the view of everyone.

CHAPTER VII

THE DISSOLVED CARD

Every good trick has a clear, logical conclusion. Although the conjurer is apparently reversing one of Nature's laws he must also be more or less reasonable in his performance. For example, if he tears up a piece of paper into little pieces and then causes these pieces to form together into four strips equal in length when laid end to end, to the original piece, the conjurer is not behaving in a reasonable manner; he should cause the little pieces to join together into one strip and the audience must be led to believe that that strip is the original piece of paper and that in some mysterious manner the conjurer has joined the pieces together. The conjurer who does that brings his trick to what may be called a "logical conclusion."

I mention this matter here because it bears upon the trick which I am about to explain. In its simplest--and crudest--form this trick consists in causing a playing card placed into a jug of water to disappear; the water is supposed to dissolve the card. I imagine, however, that no intelligent audience would be satisfied with the trick in that form; there is obviously something wanting, and that something is the magical reappearance of the card.

There are dozens of ways in which the trick could be completed--that is to say, in which the card could be caused to reappear--but it must be remembered that the card has apparently been dissolved in water, and that therefore to bring the trick to the "logical conclusion" which is the attribute of all good tricks, the water in which the card has apparently been dissolved should be used in some way to bring about the reappearance of the card.

It seems to me that if we were to reproduce the card in a box, or case, or frame which had previously been shown to be empty we should not have a very convincing trick. It might be argued, of course, that if instead of suggesting that the card is dissolved in water we suggest that it is made to disappear from the water we may fairly be allowed to reproduce the card in any way we please. To regard the trick in that way is to destroy the plot of it and to subst.i.tute another plot. In the one case the conjurer is suggesting to his audience that the card remains in the water in a state of solution and in the other that the card has disappeared altogether from the water. I think you get a much better effect if you induce your audience to think that the water has dissolved the card, and it is for that reason that I have given the t.i.tle "The Dissolved Card" to the trick.

I propose, therefore, that we should present the trick in this way. The conjurer brings forward a pack of cards, shuffles the cards with their faces towards the audience, and asks someone in the audience to take a card and to place it on the top of the pack. A gla.s.s jug, nearly full of water, is then held up for inspection, and, lastly, a large dark silk handkerchief--or m.u.f.fler--is casually shown. If one of those very trying persons who are always anxious to discover a conjurer's secrets appears anxious to examine the handkerchief the conjurer will do well to pretend that he is in a tight corner for a moment, but, somewhat reluctantly, he allows the interrupter to examine the handkerchief; as a matter of fact, the conjurer is not at all perturbed, because there is no "trick" about the handkerchief.

While the jug of water and the handkerchief are being exhibited the pack of cards is on the table. The conjurer picks it up, removes the top card and asks the person who took it to say if it is the card which was chosen and placed on the top of the pack. The answer is sure to be, "Yes."

The conjurer holds the card in his left hand with its face towards the audience, and his thumb and lingers pointing upwards. (The position of the hand is important for the working of the trick, and therefore the reader will do well to remember it.)