It is in the first two chapters, however, that we find the real meat of this book. To begin with, there are fifteen sleights with watches, illustrated with fifty drawings. Several of these sleights are used for "vanishing" two watches at a time, which seems to us to be almost too much of a good thing. But there are also some very deceptive "moves" for manipulating a single watch. Mr. Berland explains them well, with many illustrations, telling not only how to hold the hand that conceals the watch but also (and perhaps even more important) what to do with the other hand. These sleights, well-practiced, should give something of the effect produced by Gus Fowler in his beautifully deliberate watch-palming, with which he never failed to bring down the house. Another interesting feature of Chapter I is a device that enables one to do practically the same sleights with a watch that Howard Thurston performed with a card - passing it through the knees, and vanishing it from the hand, and reproducing it from the elbow - with the palms facing the audience.
