THE WONDROUS RESTORATION.
Preparation.—Have ready several rings, all alike, and
insert all save two in oranges or lemons, by driving a table-knife
rounded point into each. To one of the other rings fasten a bit of
elastic, and sew that to the inside of your coat-sleeve, so that, when
the ring is slipped off the finger, it will spring up inside the sleeve
quite unperceived. Have a piece of tape and a bodkin also ready.
Performance.—Enter wearing the spare ring, which should
be shown ostentatiously to the company. Just before commencing the
trick, substitute the one suspended by the elastic up your sleeve. Call
for the fruit, and the bodkin, and tape. Point to the lemons on your
table with a knife or your wand, and let it rest on the one selected by
the audience. Send the others away. Make a speech, saying that your
powers will enable you to conjure the ring off your finger, into the
very core of this lemon, which you now proceed to cut into slices, but
not quite severing them, and holding it so that if anything were
between the slices it would fall out. Take care that the ring inserted
remains in the middle slice. Now slip the end of the tape through the
eye of the bodkin, and push it lengthwise through the lemon, so that it
passes through the ring. Call two of the audience to stand near you,
and give both ends of the tape to be held, and tell the persons who
hold them to stand so as to keep the tape at full stretch.
Now slip the ring off your finger, and hold it between the finger
and thumb, taking care to place it so that the spectators cannot see
the thread. Point your hand towards the lemon, suddenly spread the
fingers, and away flies the ring up your sleeve. Look into your hand as
if surprised at the disappearance of the ring, show that it is empty,
and then go to the lemon. Separate the divisions one by one, and push
them apart. Take each outer slice alternately and pull it off the tape,
keeping the central slice to the last. When you come to this, the ring
will pull against the tape ; you wonder audibly what is the matter with
it; you take your knife and cut the slice gradually down, of course
taking care to destroy the slit through which the ring was introduced,
and continue to cut until the glittering metal becomes visible. Then
let anyone disengage the lemon from the imbedded ring, and acknowledge
that the latter is the same which you were seen to wear.
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