4. ROUTINE OF CIGAR PRODUCTIONS AND MANIPULATIONS
Two cigars only are necessary: one you have finger palmed in the right hand and the other in a holder under the left side of your coat. Begin by borrowing a hat; place it mouth upwards, resting on the backs of two chairs placed back to back on your left.
Produce the cigar palmed in your right hand from the air; at the same time steal the second cigar with the left hand, taking it in the finger palm. Execute the doubling sleight (already explained in connection with cigarettes) and show the two cigars, one in each hand, holding them upright by the points.
Pretend to put the one in the left hand into the borrowed hat, but really take it again in the finger palm as soon as the hand is hidden. Repeat the same maneuvers six or seven times; after the last pretended deposit in the hat you will have a cigar openly in the right hand and the other finger palmed in the left.
Next make a pretense of swallowing the cigar, using the sleight already explained, palming it in the right hand and producing the duplicate with the left hand from the point of your shoe. Push this one into your stomach with the left hand and produce the palmed cigar with the right hand from your back, making a three-quarter turn so that the spectators can see you apparently pull it out. At the same time quietly drop the cigar from the left hand into the left coat pocket. Continue by pushing the cigar into one nostril and pulling it out of the other, using the sleights explained.
Pick up the hat with the left hand and proceed to catch cigars from the air after the style of the Miser’s Dream (see page 51) with coins. Make a motion of placing the visible cigar in the hat, really finger palming it. Catch it again and make the same moves, enabling you to make some half a dozen more catches. Then change your grip of the cigar to the back finger hold; that is to say, you hold the cigar on the back of the middle finger by pressure on its sides by the first and third fingers. With this hold you can bring the hand out of the hat with its palm to the front. Make the catch from this position by simply bending the fingers, placing the tip of the thumb on the point of the cigar, and then extending the fingers.
After several catches from the back of the hand, make the last few from the front of the hand as before. Finally palm the cigar, take the hat in the right hand, and pretend to throw the cigars from it in a shower over the spectators; but they have vanished—the hat is empty. Or, if the occasion warrants it, you can load a bundle of cigars into the hat at the start and finish with a distribution of them.
Website Content: © Copyright 2024 by Trickshop.com.