Two hats are borrowed from the audience, and a dish of eggs is placed upon the table by their side, when the performer requests the lady stationed at the piano to give some music, and the exhibition commences. The egg which is used is merely a shell, the inside having been sucked or blown out through tiny holes made at either end. A slender silken thread is tied to the upper button of the performer’s waistcoat, while attached to the other end is a small piece of wax or other sticky substance. Just before the performance commences, show the dish of eggs, and then pass away from them and back of your audience, to show that they (the eggs) are in no way attached to your person.
As the music strikes up, walk to the table, take the shell from the dish, making it appear that you had no choice, but took the first one you chanced to touch, and place it inside the hat, at the same moment pressing the bit of wax to its side.
As the egg is _in the hat_ it is necessary for it to pass out upon the outside surface. To do this the hat is slowly moved downward until the egg is even with the brim; then by careful management and a little practice, the effect is produced of the egg walking up the hat instead of the hat being lowered to the egg. You may now take the egg in your hand and, holding the hat with the crown upward in a horizontal position, place it beneath the egg, and turn it slowly away from yourself. The effect will be that the egg is traveling up hill. By placing the other hat close to the one upon which you are performing, and slowly drawing it under the egg, the latter will appear to pass over to the crown of the second hat, and very much the same movements may be repeated on this as on the first.
Borrow a quarter or half-dollar from your audience, and ask the owner to place some mark upon it by which it may be identified. Wrap this in the corner of a handkerchief, and give it to some one to hold. Next take a ball of yarn, and having placed it in a tumbler, ask some other person in your audience to hold his hand over the top of the tumbler in such a way that the ball will be kept in place, and the yarn will run smoothly through the fingers. Hold one end of the yarn some distance from the tumbler, or near where the coin is held, and inform your audience that, as your dispatcher is in good working order, you will proceed to send the coin your friend has in his hand into the very center of the ball of yarn. Take the opposite corner of the handkerchief from the one holding the money in your right hand, and having counted one, two, three, command the coin to pass, at the same instant snatching the handkerchief from your friend’s hand. Next commence to unwind the ball, being careful to keep some distance from the tumbler while so doing.