money. Turn up your sleeves, and take the third dime in your right
hand, drawing particular attention to its date and general appearance,
and indirectly to the fact that you have no other coin concealed in
your hands. Turning back the table cover, rub the dime with the ball
of the thumb backward and forward on the edge of the table. In this
position your fingers will naturally be below the edge. After rubbing
for a few seconds, say: "It is nearly done, for the dime is getting
hot," and, after rubbing a moment or two longer with increased
rapidity, draw the hand away sharply, bringing away with it one of the
concealed dimes, which you exhibit as produced by the friction.
Leaving the waxed dime on the table, and again showing that you have
but one coin in your hands, repeat the operation with the remaining
dime.

THE CAPITAL Q

Take a number of coins, say from five-and-twenty to thirty, and
arrange them in the form of the letter Q, making the "tail" consist of
some six or seven coins. Then invite some person (during your absence
from the room) to count any number he pleases, beginning at the tip of
the tail and travelling up the left side of the circle, touching
each coin as he does so; then to work back again from the coin at
which he stops (calling such coin one), this time, however, not
returning down the tail, but continuing round the opposite side of the
circle to the same number. During this process you retire, but on your
return you indicate with unerring accuracy the coin at which he left
off. In order to show (apparently) that the trick does not depend on
any arithmetical principle, you reconstruct the Q, or invite the
spectators to do so, with a different number of coins, but the result
is the same.