Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

PASS VI. TO PLACE THREE BALLS ONE AFTER THE OTHER UPON THE TOP OF ONE OF THE CUPS, AND TO MAKE THEM FALL THROUGH THE CUP ON TO THE TABLE.--At the conclusion of the last Pass the performer had brought three balls under the centre cup B, a fourth remaining concealed in his hand. In lifting B to exhibit the three balls, and in replacing it beside them, he takes the opportunity of introducing beneath it this fourth ball. He next takes one of the three balls thus exposed, and placing it on the top of this same goblet (B), covering it with a second goblet (A). Making any appropriate gesture he pleases, he commands the ball to fall through the lower goblet on to the table. He then overturns (without separating) the two goblets, their mouths being towards the spectators, when the ball which he had secretly introduced will be discovered, and will appear to be that which the spectators have just seen placed on the top of the goblet (and which really still remains between the two goblets), and picks up the two goblets together, mouth upwards, with the left hand, and with the right hand takes out that which is now uppermost (B). He turns both the goblets down upon the table, placing A over the ball which he has just shown. If this is neatly done, the other ball, which has remained in A, will not be discovered, but will as it falls be covered by A, which will now have beneath it two balls. The performer now places one of the remaining balls on the top of A, covering it with either of the other goblets, and again goes through the same process till he has shown first two, and then three balls under the cup, the fourth remaining, at the close of the Pass, between the two cups last used.