Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Grasping the figure under the cloak with his right hand, the performer holds a burlesque conversation with him, finally entrusting him with a message to be immediately delivered to the President of the United States, the Shah, or any other individual at a distance. The figure does not move. “Well, sir, are you not going?” asks the performer. The figure shakes his head from side to side, an effect easily produced by turning the body backwards and forwards under the cloak. “You won’t, eh? Why not, I should like to know? Oh! I see what you mean. I haven’t given you your travelling expenses.” As he says the last words, he grasps the figure and cloak from the outside round the neck with the left hand, and draws away the right from beneath the cloak, secretly carrying with it the body, and putting his hand in his pocket, as though in search of money. He leaves the body of the figure in his pocket, and brings out the hand again empty, but in the position of holding a coin between the finger and thumb. “There, sir,” he says, “there is a shilling for you,” making the gesture of giving it. “You don’t see the coin, ladies and gentlemen; but the fact is, what I have just given him is fairy money; the weight of the ordinary coinage would interfere with the rapidity of his flight. Now, sir, make haste; you have nothing to wait for now.”