accurately made that, by arranging the boxes in due order one within
the other, and the lids in like manner, you may, by simply putting on
all the lids together, close all the boxes at once, though they can
only be opened one by one.

These are placed, the boxes together and the lids together, anywhere
so as to be just out of sight of the audience. If on your table, they
may be hidden by any more bulky article. Having secretly obtained
possession, by either of the means before described, of a coin which
is ostensibly deposited in some other piece of apparatus, you seize
your opportunity to drop it into the innermost box, and to put on the
united lids. You then bring forward the nest of boxes (which the
spectators naturally take to be one box only), and announce that the
twenty-five cent piece will at your command pass from the place in
which it has been deposited into the box which you hold in your hand,
and which you forthwith deliver to one of the audience for safe
keeping. Touching both articles with the mystic wand, you invite
inspection of the first to show that the money has departed, and then
of the box wherein it is to be found. The holder opens the box, and
finds another, and then another, and in the innermost of all, the
marked coin. Seeing how long the several boxes have taken to open, the
spectators naturally infer that they must take as long to close, and
(apart from the other mysteries of the trick) are utterly at a loss to
imagine how, with the mere moment of time at your command, you could
have managed to insert the coin, and close so many boxes. If you
desire to use the nest for a coin larger than a quarter, you can make
it available for that purpose by removing beforehand the smallest box.

THE BALL OF BERLIN WOOL