Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

The reader, being acquainted with the ordinary drawer-box, will have no difficulty in accounting for the first harvest of flowers, but the second may possibly puzzle him a little. The secret lies in the top of the outer case, which, as we have already mentioned, is slightly pyramidal in form, allowing a considerable space between its inner and outer surface, and in this space is packed the second supply of flowers. This space is closed on its under side by a flat wooden slab a, of the same area as the inside of the drawer, held in position by a thin wooden slip or bead at either end. The hindmost of these beads, b, is so arranged as to yield to pressure, and, when the drawer is pushed slightly in, gives way just enough to release the slab before mentioned, which thereupon falls flat upon the bottom of the drawer, and upon it the hitherto concealed flowers, which, spreading as they fall, completely fill the drawer. THE CHANGING CARD-DRAWER.--This is a smaller variety of the drawer-box, designed specially for use in card tricks. The inner drawer is just large enough to contain a pack of cards, which may thus be produced or vanished by its means. Between the bottoms of the true and false or outer drawer, is a space of about an eighth of an inch. This makes the apparatus available not only to produce or vanish as above mentioned, but to transform one card into another. The card to be changed is for this purpose placed in the outer drawer, which, when closed, carries it under the bottom of the inner drawer, and in this latter is placed the card for which it is to be changed, or vice versâ.