Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

CHANGING CADDIES.--These are of various kinds. We will begin with the simplest, thence proceeding to the more complicated. The conjurors caddy, in its most elementary form, is an oblong box, about six inches in length by five in height and four in width. (See Fig. 178.) One-half of its interior, which is divided into two compartments by a transverse bar across the top, is occupied by a drawer, or moveable compartment, so arranged as to slide freely backwards and forwards from end to end, according as the caddy is allowed to slope in the one direction or the other. (See Figs. 179 and 180.) Each compartment has its own lid, the caddy sometimes, but not always, having an outer lid in addition. We will suppose that it is desired to produce any article from the caddy, first shown empty. The article in question (say an egg, hard-boiled for safety) is beforehand placed in the moveable compartment, which we will suppose to occupy for the time being the space under lid a, as shown in Fig. 179. The performer takes off the opposite lid b, and shows the space beneath empty. Before removing the second lid, he slopes the caddy in the opposite direction, so as to bring the moveable compartment under lid b (see Fig. 180), and thus is enabled to show the space under a also empty. He then proceeds with the trick, and at the right moment produces the article from the caddy.