TO GUESS THE TWO ENDS OF A LINE OF DOMINOES.
For this trick a whole set of dominoes is required, and from the set the performer should secretly secure one which is not a double. Let the remaining dominoes be well shuffled, and placed according to the ordinary rules of domino games, and the performer may safely and surely undertake to tell, without seeing them, the two numbers forming the extremes of the line which may have been placed during his absence from the room. The numbers on the extreme ends of the domino line will correspond with the numbers on the domino secreted by the performer. If the trick has for any good reason to be repeated, see that the secreted domino is exchanged for another.
Numerous other simple domino tricks will on this model occur to frequent players with dominoes, and, indeed, many of the card tricks may be so adapted as to be shown with dominoes instead of cards. So much space has been devoted to card tricks that the reader cannot do better, if he desires to show some domino tricks, than refer back to the card tricks, and make the necessary adaptations for himself.
This is a trick suitable to the abilities of any amateur, and requires but little in the way of apparatus, a couple of common toy jewellery rings, a piece of elastic thread, and a lemon being the appliances needed. Take a piece of elastic thread, from three to four inches long; let one end be fastened to one of the rings and the other to the inside of the performer's coat-sleeve, care being taken to have the elastic of such a length that it permits the ring to be placed on the finger, and that when the ring is removed it will fly up the sleeve, so as to be concealed from the audience. Before commencing to show the trick, a lemon should be procured, and in the middle of it a slit be cut crosswise, and into the slit the second ring should be pushed until it lies in the very centre of the lemon. The slit should be carefully cut so as to remove no portion of the rind; it will then be found that when the ring has been pushed into the lemon the slit will close up and be imperceptible, unless its existence is known. The lemon should then be cut into slices, nearly but not quite severed, and held so that if anything were between the slices it would fall out. Of course, care must be taken that the lemon is so cut as to allow the ring to be in the middle of one of the slices. A piece of tape and a bodkin have next to be borrowed. The end of the tape should be slipped through the eye of the bodkin, and pushed lengthways through the lemon in such a way that it is passed through the ring. The ends of the tape may now be given to two different spectators, and they should be instructed to keep the tape at full stretch. The first ring worn on the performer's finger, and to which the elastic is attached, must at this juncture be slipped from off the finger, and held between the thumb and finger, care being taken that it is so held that the audience cannot see the elastic thread. The hand should be pointed towards the lemon, the fingers being then suddenly spread out, and the ring let go, and it will fly away and become hidden up the performer's coat-sleeve. Surprise at this sudden disappearance of the ring may be expressed, but it should be surmised that as it was the performer's intention to pass it into the lemon, perhaps the lost jewel may of its own accord have taken its flight thither. Let the performer then go to the lemon, and separating the divisions into which it has been sliced, push them one by one apart. Each outer slice should be alternately taken and pulled off from the tape, keeping the central slice until the last. When this is reached, again take the knife and cut the slice gradually down, carefully destroying the slit through which the ring was passed, and continue cutting until the metal of the ring is visible. The performer should let some one of the audience disengage the embedded ring, which will, of course, be found strung upon the tape.