Page:Houdini - Paper Magic.djvu/25

10. Opening this he finds another smaller one, and inside this still another, which contains the ring restored to its original shape.

After the young man acknowledges that he does not see how it has been done, the performer does it all over again. This time the last envelope is opened by the owner of the ring, who finds it fully restored.

.—The borrowed ring is on the end of the performer's wand, a dummy ring being held on the opposite end covered by the hand. By changing the wand from hand to hand the rings are "switched" and the dummy is given to the volunteer to hold. When going to the table for the hammer, the borrowed ring is left there, and while the dummy is being flattened, the stage assistant carries off the original while taking away some other apparatus. The assistant places this ring inside a set of three envelopes made from a program exactly like the borrowed one, and a little later it is brought on and left behind some object on the table.

During this time the volunteer has flattened