pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 205
This data as json
path | page | folder | text |
---|---|---|---|
unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 205 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN nel which has a tapering nozzle made specially for this purpose. The trick is generally started by proving to the audience that the bottle is empty. It is then filled with water, whichn is immediately poured out again, all this time the five pinholes being covered tightly with the hand or fingers which are holding the bottle. When a liquor is called for the performer raises the finger over the air-hole above that particular liquor, and the liquor will flow out. When a large number of liquors may be called for, the performer has one compartment filled with a perfectly colorless liquor, which he pours into glasses previously flavored with strong essences. Certain gins and cordials can be simulated in this fashion. Various improvements have been made in this bottle trick. For instance, after the bottle has yielded its various sorts of liquors, it is broken, and from the bottle the per- former produces some borrowed article which has been "vanished" in a previous trick and then apparently for- gotten. This may have been a ring, glove, or handker- chief, which will be discovered tied around the neck of a small guinea-pig or dove taken from the broken bottle. This is accomplished by having the bottle especially constructed. Its compartments end a few inches above the bottom of the bottle and the portion below having a wavy or cracked appearance, is made to slip on and off. The conjurer goes through the motions of actually break- ing the bottle by tapping it near the bottom with a small hammer or wand, and the appearance of the guinea-pig or lost article causes surprise, so that the pretended break- ing of the bottle passes unnoticed. |