Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

The vases are prepared by pressing down d in each as shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 223, and filling the well of the one with hot coffee, and that of the other with loaf-sugar. Their respective covers are then placed over them. The attention of the audience is first directed to a couple of wooden boxes, each about half as long again as the vases, and ten or twelve inches in depth, one of which is filled with coffee-berries, and the other with white haricot beans. The performer now uncovers the vase which contains the coffee, first turning the bayonet-catch so as to lift off the well b with the cover, and shows, by holding the vase upside down and rattling his wand within it, that it is perfectly empty. He now fills it with coffee-berries, laying it down in the box to do so, and holding it by the foot with one hand while he shovels the berries into it with the other. Having completely filled it with the berries, he holds it aloft, and, to show that there is “no deception,” tilts it, and lets them run back again into the box. Again he dips it into the box, but, as he does so, releases the crook (which the fingers of the hand holding the vase are just in position to do), and thus lets d fly up to the top of the vase.