Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

The marked penny, it will be remembered, remains in your left hand, and the marked florin on the table. As you go to take up the latter, you transfer the penny to your right hand, and palm it; then pick up the florin, holding it at the tips of the fingers. Spread the second handkerchief on the open palm of the left hand. Bring the florin down smartly upon it, and by the same movement let the penny fall from the palm on to the handkerchief. The two coins will now be lying (covered by the right hand) on the handkerchief, a couple of inches apart. Close the left hand on both coins, and turn the hand over, so that the edges of the handkerchief hang down. With the right hand grasp the handkerchief five or six inches below the coins. Take one of these through the handkerchief between the finger and thumb of the left hand, letting the other fall loose inside the handkerchief, which you then invite some one to hold in like manner, but in a horizontal position. (See Fig. 76.) This position is adopted in order that the two coins may not, by any accidental chink, prematurely disclose the fact that both are already in the handkerchief.