Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE TRAVELLING COUNTERS.--This is a very similar trick to that already described under the title of the “Multiplication of Money.” It is performed with twelve metal counters. The performer begins by counting the twelve counters on the table; then, taking up four of them, he hands them to a spectator to hold, and taking the remainder in his own hand, commands them to change places. On examination, his commands are found to be obeyed. The spectator has eight, while the performer has only four. The spectator is now requested to take charge of the eight, when the operator commands the four which he himself holds to rejoin them. This, also, is found to be accomplished. The operator now hands the twelve to a second spectator, requesting him to hold them tightly. After a moment’s interval, he is requested again to count them, but finds that he has grasped them too tightly, for they are now welded together into a solid mass. The performer again takes them, and by merely breathing on them, restores them to their original state. The student, with the experience which he has by this time gained, will naturally conjecture that the trick is in reality performed with sixteen loose counters, and twelve soldered together; that the performer commenced the trick with four counters palmed in his right hand, which he secretly added to the four which he handed to the spectator; that, taking up the remaining eight, and apparently transferring them from his right hand to his left, he really transferred four only, leaving the remainder in the right hand; and that when he again handed the eight counters to the spectator, he added these last to them. That in apparently transferring the remaining four from hand to hand he palmed them, forthwith dropping them into one of his pochettes, and taking from the same place, or from under his waistband, the solid twelve, which he finally handed to the second spectator in place of the twelve loose counters; again substituting the loose ones, as before, when by breathing on them he professed to restore them to their primitive state.