Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/161



tossed it up in such a way as to have it light bottom side up on her "lillies", in which position she kept it whirling. Tossing it once more it came down on the side, and again tossing it she caught it right side up on her small feet, keeping it whirling all the time.

My surprise was so great that I gave the old woman ten cents for performing this single trick.

The tricks of sleight-of-hand performers are well-nigh without number. Some of them are easily understood,—surprising, however, to children—and often interesting to grown people, while others are very clever and not so easily understood.

Instead of the hat from which innumerable small packages are taken, the Chinese magician had two hollow cylinders, which exactly fit into each other, that he took out of a box 157