Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

PASS X. THE “MULTIPLICATION” PASS.--For the purpose of this Pass it is necessary to borrow a hat, which you hold in the left hand. You then place the three balls in a row upon the table, and cover each with one of the cups. It will be remembered that a fourth ball remains palmed in your right hand. You now lift up the right hand goblet (C), and place it on the table close beside the ball which it lately covered, and as you do so, secretly introduce beneath it the palmed ball. You pick up with the right hand the ball which you have thus uncovered, and go through the motion of dropping it into the hat, really palming it in the moment during which the hand is concealed inside the hat, and at the same moment simulating, by gentle tap against the inside, the sound which the ball would make if actually dropped into the hat. You next lift B in like manner, introducing the ball just palmed beneath it, and go through the motion of placing the second ball, which is thereby left exposed, in the hat. You do the same with the third cup, then return to the first (which the spectators believe to be now empty, and from which they are astonished to see you produce another ball), continuing till you have raised each cup in succession eight or ten times, and, on each occasion of lifting a cup to uncover a ball, introducing beneath it the ball which you had just previously palmed. To the eyes of the spectators, who believe that the balls are really dropped into the hat, the effect will be exactly as if new balls, by some mysterious process of reproduction, came under the cups at each time of raising them. When you think your audience are sufficiently astonished, you remark, “I think we have about enough now; the hat is getting rather heavy. Will some one hold a handkerchief to receive the balls?” When the handkerchief is spread out, you carefully turn over the hat, and the general astonishment will be intensified at discovering that it contains nothing.