Let your ebony wand be hollowed out at one end and bored clear through
for a movable rod to work in it. In the space at the end have a
half-crown cut into three pieces, thus—
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
with a simple mechanism worked by a spiral spring at the end of the rod,
by which these three pieces, overlapping one another when drawn into the
wand, unfold upon the same plane like a perfect coin when the spring is
liberated.
You can by its means appear to draw a coin by the mere tap of your wand
from any place whatever—the wall, a table, a person’s ear, nose, or
pocket—and as often as desirable, since you pretend to remove the
half-crown each time that it is shown, and actually show a real one in
your hands.