Mark Leveridge Magic

A Wrinkle On - Borrowed Ring On Pencil

MARK LEVERIDGE

Harry Reeve bought this routine after I demmed it at an IBM Convention and he suggested to me that the second of the three moves was perhaps in need of some attention as he felt it could be made to look a bit more natural. This set me off thinking about it and by the end of the convention I had devised an alternative handling which, given the necessary practice, looks very smooth and innocent!

Refer to the original text booklet and get yourself to paragraph 19. As your right hand drops to your side with the stolen ring, use the left hand to pick up the pencil and lay it across the narrow width of the folded handkerchief about a quarter of the way up from the short edge nearest you. Make sure that the pointed end of the pencil is on the left and that the tip of the pencil, from where the sharpening has started to narrow down the end, is just overlapping the left side of the folded cloth.

You explain that because you have folded the handkerchief there are now several layers of cloth between where the pencil is on top and the ring lies underneath. This patter gives you time to get the palmed ring pinched between the right second and third fingers. It is only the extreme edge of the ring which is clipped between these two fingers, so that the ring's hole is left mainly uncovered.

Both hands now move towards the pencil. The left hand presses down on the pointed end of the pencil. This causes the other end to be pivoted upwards. As it does so the right hand arrives at the blunt end of the pencil and slides the fingers along the pencil from right to left until the fingers reach the pencil centre. In doing this, the fingers simultaneously slide the ring's exposed hole over the blunt pencil end so that it too is carried, concealed by the backs of the right fingers, to the pencil centre.

As soon as the centre is reached, and without a pause, the right hand lifts the pencil slightly and moves it up the folded cloth until a position is reached about a quarter of the way down from the top short edges of the cloth. The pencil is placed down again at this point and the left hand folds the front edge of the cloth over the pencil, the right fingers withdrawing at the last moment in order to ensure that the ring is not prematurely exposed.

Done smoothly and unhurriedly, it simply looks as if the right hand has moved the pencil higher up the cloth and then covered it over. You can now continue with the rest of the routine from paragraph 23 onwards.